Harare - Opposition parties in Zimbabwe accuse President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF of employing various election rigging strategies since year 2000.
In 2008, opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai was forced to quit participating in a run-off presidential poll against Mugabe citing violence against his supporters. Over 200 Movement for Democratic Change supporters were killed, and several thousands were left nursing injuries or displaced.
In 2013, Mugabe’s ruling party was accused of engaging an Israeli firm to rig elections on its behalf. As the 2018 beckons, already the MDC has raised warning alarm amid fears that the ruling party may employ expensive rigging tricks. Tsvangirai has indicated that he will not accept any result that will not declare him a winner unless the call for reforms get a response..
In this series, Tapiwa Mashakada, a former Minister of Economic Planning and Investment during the term of the unity government between the Zanu PF and the opposition sheds light on election rigging narratives in Zimbabwe.
AllnetAfrica.com will cover four of the 14 tactics the ruling party allegedly uses to manipulate elections. For updates like us here on Facebook.
Delimitation and Positioning of polling stations
In the past, gerrymandering was used to buttress Zanu-PF votes. Now that there is no delimitation in 2018 Zanu-PF has come up with housing schemes in urban and peri-urban in order to neutralize the urban vote.
Shadowy housing schemes have mushroomed in Caledonia, Stonridge, Kuwadzana, Southlea, Chitungwiza, Hatchliffe and Harare South just to mention a few. Stands are being allocated in a corruptible and partisan manner hence only Zanu-PF supporters get them. This strategy is called “growing the urban vote”.
Linked to these shenanigans is the issue of siting of the polling stations. More polling stations are put in rural areas, resettlement and farming communities. Then there are those tents erected as polling stations which I suspect may not be genuine. All these tactics are possible because Zanu-PF is the referee and player at the same time. The Electoral Commission operates at the behest of the ruling party.
Distribution of Food and Agricultural Inputs
Food and inputs are used as used as campaign tools. Opposition supporters are discriminated. Social welfare, Oxfam and CARE are commandeered by chiefs and village heads not to include mdc supporters on the beneficiary list. All inputs and food packs are used to bait votes for Zanu-PF. We have asked about this issue but we keep hearing “it’s not policy” but they do not deny the fact that it is practice. Rural folk is now conditioned to think that food and inputs are coming from Zanu-PF. They hardly know it is the tax payers’ money.
Statecraft
Zanu-PF uses state institutions in the whole electoral process. During my rural outreach, I learnt that soldiers, retired army officials, police and CIO’s roam villages freely during election campaign to instil fear among the villagers. They give the so-called political education to the rural masses. Imagine how cowed the rural folk are. Memories of the liberation war are invoked and pungwes (Night Ceremonies) are sometimes held.
Role of Chiefs and Headmen
Headmen and Chiefs are used as rural prefects to control and influence the voting behaviour of their subjects through overt and covert methods of threats and intimidation. They generate lists of names of villagers whom they ‘herd’ to the polling station. Subjects lose land or livestock for real or suspected involvement in opposition politics. In return, chiefs get vehicles and a monthly salary. In the 2017 budget the Chiefs Council got $3million dollars. Chief’s homesteads are electrified and they are beneficiaries of the land invasions. Headmen have been put on payroll as well. Zanu-PF has a good coercive rural structure. The result is that rural voters end up voting Zanu-PF by hook or crook.
More in the next article …
