By Vusumuzi Sifile
ON Friday last week, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) was still "working flat out" to finalise the list of candidates to contest the 1 958 wards in next month’s harmonised elections, a week after nomination courts sat across the country.
This, and the way a few nomination courts failed to complete their business on time, in some instances continuing until the next morning, has sparked speculation on the commission’s preparedness to run the harmonised elections.
Observers and analysts last week said if the confusion at the nomination courts were to be taken as an example, then the ZEC has shown "very little by way of readiness" for the 29 March polls. Commentators noted "it is still legally possible to postpone the elections" as there are still a number of "fundamental issues requiring more time to correct".
Noel Kututwa, the chairperson of the Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN), said the same problems encountered at nomination could spill into the elections.
"This was to be expected," Kututwa said. "I anticipate the same problem with the voting ... It would be undesirable for polling to go on and on beyond 7PM given the on-going power cuts and no electricity in some rural constituencies."
Last week, the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP) also said the situation was not ideal for elections next month.
But ZEC officials insist they are ready, as they have been "preparing for over a year".
ZEC spokesperson, Shupikai Mashereni, on Thursday acknowledged they faced challenges putting together results of the nomination court.
"We had nomination courts sitting throughout the country," Mashereni said. "Results were sent mostly by phone or fax, but when we got them, some of them were not very clear. Each ward had an average of six contestants, and we had to tabulate the information ward by ward," he said.
Asked whether this was not an indication that ZEC was not fully prepared for such a massive election, Mashereni said: "ZEC now has all the logistics required for the elections...We did not start preparing for the elections this year. Remember, we are employed full-time and our job is to prepare for and run elections. So what do you think we have been doing all along?"
But Mashereni could not disclose the exact figures of the various logistical requirements, such as the translucent ballot boxes, indelible ink, motor vehicles, generators, fuel and mobile phones, among others.
Early this month, Mashereni told The Standard "ZEC has arranged for air transport" to access areas rendered inaccessible by the recent floods".
Among other things, it was reported last week that the commission would set up 11 000 polling stations for the harmonised elections.
Kututwa said considering what had happened in previous elections "11 000 polling stations may not be enough to allow all voters to exercise their right to vote within a reasonable time in this election".
"These harmonised elections are the first time that Zimbabwe will be holding four elections at the same time," he said. "This has never been done before. I would have expected that the polling stations would have been doubled to take into account the fact that each voter will be given four ballot papers to cast. Just the time that it will take to go through four ballot papers will unduly lengthen the voting process and it would have been preferable to increase the number of polling stations."
But others believe if the number of polling stations is increased, political parties and their candidates would face another challenge: spending a lot of money on polling agents.
Every candidate needs at least one agent at each polling station. Considering there would be four elections running simultaneously at 11 000 polling stations, each political party would need to field at least four candidates at each polling station. Parties fielding candidates in all constituencies would need 44 000 polling agents. They don’t come cheap either.
But Kututwa said "it is better for the election to be expensive for parties than to have voters’ democratic rights to vote prejudiced by having few polling stations".
He proposed that the political "parties would rather take the risk" than let people fail to vote because there were fewer polling stations than could cater for all the voters.
He said some candidates could also volunteer their services.
David Coltart of the MDC Mutambara faction said this was not likely to be a problem for the "serious political parties".
"For example, in Bulawayo we already have a surplus of people who want to be polling agents," said Coltart. "Maybe this could be a problem for the smaller parties and independents. But generally, we share the same concerns with them. So we can say they will be covered by other opposition party agents."
In the past, voters could vote anywhere in their constituency. This year, voting will be ward-based, but not much has been done to enlighten voters on the new arrangements.
"Very little voter education is being conducted by the ZEC," Kututwa said. "The solution is to change the whole administrative set-up and ensure that adequate human and financial resources are in place to be able to carry out these activities properly."
Paul Themba Nyathi, also from the Mutambara faction, said the distribution of polling stations "should be based on the mathematical factor that there are four entities being voted for simultaneously. It is not something one can just do from the air."
Political analyst, Felix Mafa, the spokesperson for the MDC Tsvangirai faction in Bulawayo, said with the current number of polling stations, the "voting process will definitely need more time for each voter to cast four votes".
"If each voter takes about 10 minutes inside the polling station in order to cast his/her votes, there are many votes that will be lost, as many eligible voters might not afford to spend the whole day in a queue to cast their votes," he said.
Some candidates — especially those from newly established political parties — appear not conversant with the new regulations relating to the election, which could result in their papers being rejected as not being in order.
Others, like perennial loser Egypt Dzinemunhenzwa, went to the court without enough money to file the papers.
Others, like Moreprecision Muzadzi of the obscure Vox Populi, were not aware that presidential candidates, for example, have to be over 40 years old. The Christian Democratic Party (CDP) says it would have fielded eight candidates "but many fell by the wayside for various reasons".
The party ended up fielding only two.
First published in The Standard, 24 February 2008
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