Less than 60 days to go, but not a poll sign in sight

By Vusumuzi Sifile

IN two months Zimbabweans will go for the landmark harmonised Presidential, House of Assembly, Senatorial and Local Government elections. Yet, as of last week, there were still no signs of the cut and-thrust of a do-or-die election.

This could be the biggest election since independence in terms of the number of votes and the number of seats being contested.

By this time in previous elections, posters and election paraphernalia would be all over the country. Political rallies would be in full swing. Voters would be clear on their constituency and ward boundaries.

That has not happened yet. The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), which runs all elections, is still to announce the constituencies. In terms of Constitutional Amendment 18, the number of House of Assembly seats will increase from the current 150 to 210, all of them to be contested.

Yesterday, ZEC deputy chief elections officer, Utloile Silaigwana said "the delimitation is in its final stage". Once completed, the report would be submitted to President Robert Mugabe before the boundaries are announced. Mugabe is currently on leave.

"ZEC will announce the electoral boundaries in due course after its submission to His Excellency, the President in terms of Section 61A of the Constitution of Zimbabwe," said Silaigwana. "We cannot give the exact date as we are busy finalising the delimitation report as earlier on mentioned by the commission."

Although new demarcations are yet to be announced, The Standard understands Matabeleland North and South will each have 13 seats. Harare province will have 29 constituencies, one more than Midlands with 28.
Manicaland province has 27, Masvingo 26, Mashonaland East 23, Mashonaland West 22, Mashonaland Central 18, while Bulawayo, since 2000 an opposition MDC stronghold, has only 12.

Parties can only hold primaries to select candidates after the constituency boundaries are known. No primaries have been held yet. The only known candidate so far is Mugabe who was "endorsed" as the Zanu PF presidential candidate last year.

Representatives of opposition parties and civil society last week said this "laid-back" attitude was a direct result of the ZEC’s delay in announcing new constituency boundaries.
They said considering the time left before the elections, the "only viable option is to postpone the election, at least to June".
Mugabe has ruled that out.

The president of ZAPU-Federal Party, Paul Siwela, said the delimitation exercise was "suspect" as there were fewer constituencies in opposition strongholds than in Zanu PF's traditional turf.
He said: "This whole thing is suspect. It was crafted specifically to rig the election in favour of Zanu PF. The country has no money. How will we fund such bureaucratic requirements?" He said the statistics of registered voters could have been tampered with.

Both factions of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) have indicated they may boycott the election because the voter registration used as the basis for delimitation was not properly carried out.

In terms of Constitutional Amendment 18, voter registration must be conducted by the ZEC independently, not under the Registrar General’s office.

The MDC faction led by Morgan Tsvangirai has gone a step further, calling for the reconstitution of ZEC. The faction’s spokesperson, Nelson Chamisa, last week said the delimitation by the ZEC was "illegitimate, militarised and unilateral".

"The whole process is a scandal," said Chamisa. "The delimitation was done in an illegitimate, militarised and unilateral manner. For example, one of the officials in Manicaland is a serving army general. ZEC chairperson George Chiweshe is also a former military lawyer. We respect our military, but we cannot have them being abused as chief agents in this gerrymandering by Zanu PF."

Chamisa said the current set-up was "against the spirit of the Pretoria dialogue".
"The delimitation was supposed to be based on formal voter registration, not this haphazard process we had. The ZEC has to be reconstituted. Voter education also has to take place. Alternatively, people should be allowed to use identity cards for voting."

But Welshman Ncube, the secretary-general of the Arthur Mutambara faction, on Thursday said Chamisa’s assertions were "mere propaganda", not based on true facts. Ncube said the MDC had no reason to call for the reconstitution of the ZEC, as they were also party to the setting up of the ZEC.

"In spite of all the propaganda we make," said Ncube, "the truth is that the current members of the electoral commission were appointed by both Zanu PF and the MDC, except for the chairperson, who was appointed by President Mugabe. In fact, nearly half of them were nominated by MDC officials. We do not want to embarrass them by mentioning who nominated who."

Instead of reconstituting the ZEC, Ncube said the respective officials should take their nominees to task.
"If they (ZEC) do not act independently, then we should take them to task," said Ncube. "We put them in there confidently. So far, we believe their decisions are based on consensus, as there are MDC and Zanu PF representatives in the commission. People cannot sit there and say we want an independent commission when we already have one. Appointing another one will not solve anything."

Does this mean the faction is happy with the delimitation exercise?

"Our gripe on this is that the voter registration by Tobaiwa Mudede (Registrar General) is unreliable as he is partisan. Until such a time when we have a new constitution and fresh voter registration by the electoral commission, a delimitation cannot be completed," said Ncube.
The director of the Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN), Rindai Chipfunde-Vava on Friday said "holding the elections in March does not give adequate time to put in place all logistical requirements".

"Right now people do not know their constituencies," said Chipfunde-Vava. "There is need for massive voter education as there would be different ballot papers and different boxes. They should also consider the time needed for recruitment and training of election officials. Everything is being rushed; there is no time for consultations."

Even the newly-formed Zimbabwe People’s Progressive Democratic Party (ZPPDP) has voiced concern over the delimitation.

The party’s secretary-general, Gibbs Paul Gotora said the exercise was "nothing but madness and a cheating tactic".
But Silaigwana insisted yesterday: "All political parties attended consultative delimitation meetings at district and provincial levels . . . ZEC carried its mandate independently without the influence of any political party".

Earlier, Silaigwana had said he was "surprised" the parties were complaining about delimitation when they "have been attending meetings and making their recommendations".
"The voter registration exercise was carried out after meeting all political parties and we responded to their requests by extending the mobile registration exercise by three weeks. Voter registration has not closed, only the mobile registration exercise was closed."

Meanwhile, new political parties have begun to emerge ahead of the elections. Last week alone, representatives of two "new" parties, the Zimbabwe Integrated Party (ZIP) and United Democratic People’s Constitution (UDPC) knocked at the doors of The Standard to announce their arrival on the political landscape.

They brought their manifestos, saying they were ready to contest the elections.

This article was first published in The Standard on January 13, 2008