The Times
March 18, 2008
Jan Raath in Harare
Zimbabwe has
the highest proportion of elderly voters in the world,
according to the
voters' roll being used for elections next week. A glance
at one page of the
roll yesterday for a ward in the Mount Pleasant suburb of
Harare turned up a
Fodias Kunyepa, who was born in 1901. Over the page was
Rebecca Armstrong,
born 1900.
Somewhat younger was Desmond Lardner-Burke, born 1909, who was
the notorious
Minister for Justice in the rebel Rhodesian Government and
responsible for
the harassment, arrest and detention without trial of tens
of thousands of
black nationalists, including President Mugabe, fighting
against white rule
in the 1960s and 1970s.
Mr Lardner-Burke left the
country soon after the demise of the illegally
constituted Rhodesian state
in 1980, and the establishment of Zimbabwe's
independence. He died soon
after, in South Africa. Mr Kunyepa and Mrs
Armstrong are also long
dead.
Opposition campaign workers say that the voters' roll is stuffed
with the
names of the dead, of non-existent people, of those with fake
identity
numbers and with names repeated numerous times in different
constituencies,
sometimes in the same ward.
That way, supporters of
Mr Mugabe and his ruling Zanu (PF) party will be
allowed by compliant
electoral officials to vote repeatedly.
"It also means that when they stuff
the ballot boxes, a huge majority will
not appear unreasonable," said one
campaigner who asked not to be named.
Mr Lardner-Burke, who was reputed
to have a sense of irony, would be amused
at the idea of posthumously
helping Mr Mugabe, born in 1924, to win
presidential elections and go on for
another five years. "There's one
[person at least 100 years old] on nearly
every page of the voters' roll for
Mount Pleasant," said Trudy Stevenson,
parliamentary candidate for one of
the two factions of the opposition
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). The
roll has 212 pages with 55 names
on each.
Before the last elections, in 2005, the MDC was able to get hold
of CDs of
the voters' rolls for 12 constituencies, subjected them to digital
analysis
and found that 45 per cent of the names on the list were false.
Since then
Tobaiwa Mudede, the Registrar-General, has kept a tight lid on
the roll.
Mrs Stevenson has been fighting to get a digital list of the
roll, which
takes up five CDs. Under court orders, Mr Mudede complied. He
gave her 50
CDs of the roll - but as photographs that cannot be digitally
analysed.
Zimbabwe's electoral law also states that the winner of the
presidential
election has to have more than 50 per cent of the vote. The
provision took
on dramatic importance when Simba Makoni, Mr Mugabe's former
Finance
Minister, joined Morgan Tsvangirai, the opposition leader, last
month in
challenging Mr Mugabe. Analysts say that in the event that Mr
Mugabe wins
less than 50 per cent - and he got only 54 per cent in the last
presidential
election in 2002 - an alliance between the two opposition
candidates would
almost certainly beat him.
However, the Act also
states that the one who gets a simple majority is to
be declared the winner.
"If it turns out he doesn't get over 50 per cent,
there's no guessing which
alternative he will choose," one lawyer said.
VOA
By Patience Rusere and Benedict Nhlapo
Washington
Pretoria
17 March 2008
Officials of the
non-governmental Zimbabwe Election Support Network and the
opposition
Movement for Democratic Change said they have been denied
monitoring access
to the country's postal balloting system ahead of
elections on March
29.
Election Support Network Chairman Noel Kututwa said that although his
group
has been accredited to observe the elections, it has been denied
access to
the postal ballot process, which was set in motion late last
week.
An estimated 77,000 civil servants, including police officers,
soldiers,
diplomats and members of the security forces have started to send
in postal
ballots.
Policy Coordinator Eddie Cross of the MDC
formation led by presidential
candidate Morgan Tsvangirai said the party has
received reports of police
and soldiers voting under supervision and, in one
confirmed case, filling
out multiple ballots.
Kututwa told reporter
Patience Rusere of VOA's Studio 7 for Zimbabwe that
the ZEC is obliged by
law to provide observers access to all aspects of the
voting
process.
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe media watchdogs assembled on Monday in
Pretoria, South
Africa, said there was little chance the elections taking
place March 29
will be free and fair, accusing the Harare government of
failing to
implement regional guidelines.
Correspondent Benedict
Nhlapho attended the roundtable and reported.
VOA
By Carole Gombakomba
Washington
17 March
2008
Officials of both groupings of Zimbabwe's opposition
Movement for Democratic
Change said members of their party were severely
assaulted today in Harare,
the country's capital, and provincial Bindura, by
alleged ruling party youth
militants.
Spokesman Gabriel Chaibva of
the MDC formation led by Arthur Mutambara said
three members of the
opposition wing were assaulted in Mbare, Harare, by a
criminal gang of
youths known to locals as "Chipangano" and aligned with the
ruling
party.
Elections Director Dennis Murira of the MDC formation led by
presidential
candidate Morgan Tsvangirai said three members of his grouping
were badly
beaten by at least 85 ZANU-PF youths in Bindura and were
receiving medical
attention.
Elsewhere, the homes of three opposition
members were said to have been
torched at Manga Farm, Bindura, where
Minister Without Portfolio and ZANU-PF
Commissar Elliot Manyika is seeking
re-election to parliament.
VOA was unable to obtain comment from the
ruling party on the allegations.
Meanwhile, a pre-election update by the
Zimbabwe Peace Project reflected a
rise in cases of violence and
intimidation in the provinces of Harare,
Midlands, Manicaland, Matebeleland
North and Matabeleland South.
Peace Project Director Jestina Mukoko told
reporter Carole Gombakomba of
VOA's Studio 7 for Zimbabwe that the
occurrence of incidents of violence in
widely separated areas of the country
is a cause for concern to human rights
activists.
Zim Online
by
Cuthbert Nzou Tuesday 18 March 2008
HARARE - Zimbabwe's
ruling ZANU PF party is setting up camps across the
country for its youth
militia, a development that sources said could see a
rise in politically
motivated violence and human rights abuses.
The sources said a ZANU
PF-linked private consultancy firm had been hired to
market the camps
(commonly called bases) as youth centres or clubs. This was
to mask the
camps' real function as operational bases for militia deployed
to campaign
for President Robert Mugabe's party and drive out the opposition
from its
rural strongholds.
"The bases would be disguised as youth clubs. Their
mandate is to make sure
that ZANU PF wins these tricky elections," said a
source, who spoke on
condition he was not named.
The militia will
intensify pressure on the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC)
party, quickly establishing "no go areas" for the
opposition in rural
districts as happened in general and presidential
elections in 2000 and
2002, said our source who sits on a ZANU PF committee
overseeing the
deployment of the youths.
The committee running ZANU PF's election
communication strategy is jointly
headed by party information boss Nathan
Shamuyarira and government
information minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu.
Presidential press secretary George
Charamba also sits on the
committee.
Mugabe's nephew Patrick Zhuwawo and deputy youth minister
Saviour Kasukuwere
are also in the committee and are reportedly the brains
behind plan to set
up youth camps.
Young militiamen and women trained
under a government national youth
programme, together with war veterans,
form the centre-piece of the
government's campaign strategy, unleashing
violence and terror against the
opposition to ensure victory for Mugabe and
ZANU PF in every major election
since 2000.
Churches and human rights
groups accuse the fanatical militia of hunting
down opposition supporters,
raping, torturing and sometimes murdering them
as punishment for not backing
Mugabe's government, charges the Harare
administration
denies.
Shamuyarira yesterday vehemently denied that ZANU PF was
deploying youths to
unleash violence on the opposition but said the party
was setting up youth
clubs to run income-generating projects as part of an
initiative to empower
young Zimbabweans.
"As part of our empowerment
programme we agreed to establish the youth clubs
to engage in various
economic activities," Shamuyarira told ZimOnline.
"It is absolute hogwash
for anyone to suggest that the establishment of the
clubs is meant to
unleash violence on the opposition . . . we are not a
violent party and we
are very confident that the party will win because it
is tried and tested,"
he added.
However, our sources said Shamuyarira's committee met on March
4 and agreed
to establish youth camps to drum up support for ZANU PF
throughout the
country.
Kasukuwere and Zhuwawo are said to have told
the meeting that there was need
to ensure youths were permanently based in
constituencies to campaign for
ZANU PF.
It was agreed that at least 2
000 camps would have to be established which
works out to a camp for each of
the country's 2 000 wards. At least five
youths will man each base which
comes up to 10 000 youths for all the camps.
Most youths to be used to
campaign for ZANU PF will be drawn from the
government's controversial
national service youth training programme and
from ZANU PF cell, branch and
district youth groups.
Mugabe, presiding over Zimbabwe's worst ever
economic crisis, faces the
popular Tsvangirai and former finance minister
Simba Makoni in the March 29
presidential ballot being held jointly with
elections for parliament and
local councils. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
by Patricia Mpofu Tuesday 18 March
2008
HARARE - President Robert Mugabe's ruling ZANU PF party
has taken an early
lead in local government elections winning 389 wards
unopposed placing it
far ahead of the two factions of the main opposition
Movement for Democratic
Change party that clinched a combined 39
seats.
1 572 wards countrywide remain up for grabs on March 29 when
Zimbabweans
also choose a new president and Parliament.
Independent
election monitoring group, the Zimbabwe Election Support Network
(ZESN) said
figures it obtained from the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC)
showed the
highest number of councilors who were voted into district
councils unopposed
where in Mugabe's rural home district of Zvimba.
The main faction of the
MDC led by Morgan Tsvangirai won more council seats
unopposed in Tsholotsho
district in Matabeleland North province, ironically
an area supposedly
dominated by the smaller faction of the MDC led by
academic Arthur
Mutambara.
The Tsvangirai-led MDC won 25 seats with the Mutambara-led MDC
picking up 14
seats unopposed.
Local council elections - that are
normally a low-key affair - have always
seen large numbers of seats being
decided without a single vote cast than
have parliamentary elections, with
ZANU PF reportedly the only party to have
picked at least two parliamentary
seats unopposed this year.
Political analyst say an unfair playing field
and a political climate of
fear will ensure victory for Mugabe and ZANU PF
despite a deepening economic
crisis marked by hyperinflation, shortages of
food and every basic
commodity.
Meanwhile, the government has
accredited ZESN to observe elections, the
group's chairman Noel Kututwa
said.
There were fears that the government might not allow ZESN, the
largest
election monitoring group in the country, to observe the polls after
the
group criticised the government's handling of past
elections.
"ZESN commends the decision by the Minister of Justice,
Parliamentary and
Legal Affairs (Patrick Chinamasa) to approve ZESN's
request to observe the
29 March 2008 harmonized elections," said
Kututwa.
The Harare government has blocked the European Union, United
States and
other governments that have in the past accused Mugabe of
violating human
rights and stealing elections.
Russia is the only
European country among a host of African and Asian
countries invited to the
polls because they are friendly to Mugabe's
government.
Such friendly
countries have in the past declared Zimbabwe's elections free
and fair
despite politically motivated violence and gross human rights
abuses in the
run-up to polls. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
by Simplicious Chirinda Tuesday 18 March
2008
HARARE - Zimbabwe's Christian Alliance group says it
plans to transport some
of the multitude of Zimbabwean immigrants living in
South Africa back home
to vote in elections in about two weeks
time.
The Alliance said it was looking to move about 50 000 Zimbabweans
across the
Limpopo River separating the two countries, adding it was
"working out the
logistics" of how best to move such a huge number of people
across the
Beitbridge border post that is the busiest in southern
Africa.
"We are organising transport for potential Zimbabwean voters in
South Africa
to travel home and vote. We are only working on logistics to
see how we can
do it best," Christian Alliance spokesman Useni Sibanda told
Zimonline on
Monday.
The Alliance brings together opposition
political parties and major civic
society organisations campaigning for a
democratic solution to Zimbabwe's
eight-year old social, economic and
political crisis.
But Sibanda said political parties were not part to the
plan to bring South
African-based Zimbabweans home to vote.
An
estimated three million Zimbabweans or a quarter of the country's 12
million
population are living outside the country after fleeing home because
of
economic hardships and politically motivated violence.
Mugabe's
government has denied the exiles, most of who are believed to
support the
opposition, the opportunity to vote saying it did not have the
resources to
enable all Zimbabweans spread across the globe to vote.
Only Zimbabweans
posted abroad on government duty have been able to vote by
post in previous
elections. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
by Mutumwa Mawere Tuesday 18 March
2008
JOHANNESBURG - The stakes are high and yet the debate
about the key
challenges that confront Zimbabwe has been predictably
hijacked and
imprisoned by a mischievous dichotomous analysis of the
Zimbabwean condition
spearheaded by no other than the incumbent
President.
Any leader in President Robert Mugabe's position would know
what time it is
but it is evident that what citizens are yearning for is
regrettably not at
the centre of neither ZANU-PF nor Mugabe's
agenda.
The task of reconstructing and transforming the country has
played hostage
to a minimalist and divisive approach to
nation-building.
Zimbabwe is crying out loud for a leadership that can
transcend the
limitations of partisan political discourse to begin to
addressing the root
causes of the country's debilitating political and
economic crisis.
In only 12 days, registered and eligible voters will
confront a ballot paper
asking them to make a choice between four Zimbabwean
men.
There are many of us who remain concerned about the Zimbabwean
condition but
are not in a position to directly influence the outcome of the
elections.
I am acutely aware that if Mugabe were to be re-elected such
an outcome
would be absurd not only because I have interests in the country
but because
the answer to a better and not bitter Zimbabwe does not lie in
him.
All we can and should do is to assist in unpacking the kind of
issues that
should hopefully inform those that are privileged to vote or
anyone who
believes that democratic change is inevitable in Zimbabwe and the
only
sustainable way of advancing such change is to talk to those who have
the
capacity to use their pen in a secret ballot to send the message that
the
country is serious and ready to move on.
Such people are our
relatives and friends and it should be easy for anyone
in the diaspora to
reach at least 20 people before the decision day to tell
them about what is
at stake.
The state media in Zimbabwe is totally helpless and partisan to
assist in
any change agenda.
Makoni's entry has helped to make
Mugabe's speeches longer and more
ridiculous and in a sense facilitate the
penetration of Morgan Tsvangirai
deeper into traditional ZANU-PF
strongholds.
Mugabe is not capable of handling to strong competitors and
this election
has the prospect of surprising many. It is important that we
all play our
part in this great March surprise by changing the debate about
what matters
to Zimbabweans.
President Mugabe like many of his
contemporaries are afraid of change and
are at their best when they analyse
the Zimbabwean condition in self serving
dichotomies: "puppet v/s patriot";
"progressive v/s reactionary"; "principal
v/s agent"; "wife v/s prostitute";
"Mugabe v/s Tsvangirai/Makoni"; "ZANU-PF
v/s sell-outs/enemies of the
state"; "neo colonialism v/s sovereignty" and
"black v/s white".
As a
consequence, most of the critical debates of our time have been
imprisoned
by this kind of analysis and in the process the policy issues
that ought to
be at the centre of these fundamental debates are easily lost.
The
campaign language used by Mugabe suggests that Zimbabwe is not in a
crisis
and, in fact, the forthcoming election represents nothing but a
constitutionally mandated ritual with predetermined
outcomes.
Notwithstanding the anger of citizens, Mugabe has attempted to
deflect the
anger and redirect it at his competitors in a hypocritical
manner that only
serves to make citizens cynical of elections and political
processes.
I am not convinced that many of the members and supporters of
ZANU-PF fully
comprehend the magnitude of the crisis and its
causes.
It would be simplistic to argue that the Zimbabwean crisis is a
product of
imperialism and the actions of the enemies of the state and yet
at this
defining stage of the national democratic revolution, it is being
argued
that conditions exist for a credible, free and fair election and that
the
incumbent President has a clue about what Zimbabwe needs to lift itself
out
of the quagmire.
Even Mugabe would accept that one of the
foundational principles of the
liberation struggle was the need to restore
civil rights to all the country's
citizens.
However, it appears that
over the last 28 years he has changed and sees the
country in partisan terms
and in a sense regards himself as a super citizen
endowed with a different
set of rights.
The manner in which he has welcomed Makoni's audacious
entry into
Presidential politics and the dismissive attitude towards
Tsvangirai
suggests that if he had his way, he would have amended the
constitution to
disqualify such competitors but fortunately residual
democratic order still
exists in Zimbabwe to allow Makoni, Tsvangirai and
Towungana to share the
same platform with Mugabe.
If Mugabe cannot
erase the names of his competitors from the ballot paper
then it baffles my
mind to hear that his colleagues in the army and prison
service would want
to pre-empt the outcome of the elections through cheap
intimidation.
What is instructive is that Mugabe has never considered
Tsvangirai to be his
equal to the extent that even in the context of the
SADC mediated talks he
did not see it fit to meet his fellow Zimbabwean
citizen.
It was then left to President Mbeki to shuttle between the two
parties and
yet only 29 years ago, the same Mugabe sat at the same
negotiating table
with Ian Smith and has credited himself of being an
architect of unity with
Joshua Nkomo.
What kind of mind informs
Mugabe's thinking about power, citizenship and
responsibility?
It is
evident that in Mugabe's mind any political competitor is an enemy of
the
state and should not be treated as any patriot seeking the same ends
that he
purports to be advancing by wanting to remain in power.
Any government
derives its legitimacy from its people. The only reliable
source revenue for
any functioning democratic order is tax revenue from
citizens.
Accordingly, any functional state should not see its role
as more than a
referee and facilitator seeking to expand its revenue base to
do more for
the vulnerable citizens.
The post colonial government has
systematically reduced the revenue base of
the state and of late through a
systematic intimidation and harassment
policy has managed to instil fear
into its financiers to the extent that the
Zimbabwean today is more
dependent on aid than on its own tax contributors.
When you see the RBZ
engaging in commercial activities and procuring
tractors and farm
implements, then you know its time for fundamental
changes.
Ultimately the shareholders of the nation are the citizens
that contribute
through taxes to its sustenance.
However, in
contemporary Zimbabwe there appears to be a serious disconnect
between the
people who elect and who fund the government.
Most able-bodied
Zimbabweans have been externalised and are now contributing
taxes to foreign
jurisdictions.
If there was any better yardstick to measure the success
or failure of
Mugabe's government it is in the area of ensuring the
viability of the
state.
Any President who constructively undermines
the state's tax base must be
shown a red card.
The Zimbabwean
government has succeeded in converting the state into private
fiefdom with a
number of opaque godfathers masquerading as state actors.
The role of the
RBZ in undermining the state ought to be one of the
fundamental issues to be
debated and resolved so that commercial non-state
actors who have been
sucked into the corrupt machine can be released to
pursue genuine economic
and not politically engineered activities.
The MDC has aptly termed its
economic blueprint: "Restart" confirming the
widely held view that the
Zimbabwean crisis has deep-seated roots.
* Mutumwa Mawere is a
Zimbabwean-born South African businessman
VOA
By Blessing Zulu
Washington
17 March
2008
Zimbabwean independent presidential candidate Simba
Makoni has said it is
possible President Robert Mugabe could be prosecuted
if he fails to win
re-election.
Makoni told the Financial Times that
if he prevailed over President Mugabe
in the poll set for March 29, Mr.
Mugabe would be allowed to "retire to his
village" to write his memoirs but
would remain subject to "the law of the
land."
The question arose in
connection with the so-called Gukurahundi purge of
supporters of liberation
rival commander Joshua Nkomo in the 1980s in which
some 20,000
died.
Makoni's statement seemed to indicate repositioning on the
question, as he
had said in earlier interviews with VOA and the BBC last
month that Mr.
Mugabe could live out his last days without fear of
prosecution.
This follows a charge by independent member of parliament
Jonathan Moyo, a
former top Mugabe aide now seeking re-election to
parliament for Tsholotsho,
Matabeleland North, that retired Major Kudzai
Mbudzi, belileved to be
aligned to Makoni, served in the infamous Fifth
Brigade alleged to have
carried out those massacres.
Mbudzi has
denied the charge, saying he joined the Fifth Brigade after that
period.
Political analyst Joy Mabhenge, also executive director of
the Zimbabwe
Coalition on Debt and Development, told reporter Blessing Zulu
of VOA's
Studio 7 for Zimbabwe that Makoni has respositioned on the question
of
prosecuting Mugabe because he wants to bolster his support among voters
in
Matabeleland North and South.
The Zim Diaspora
By Elliot
Pfebve
ZIMBABWE has been gripped by an election fever probably never felt
before
for a long time.
One might be forgiven to think that the
ecstatic mood of the electorate in
Zimbabwe today has never happened before
as we prepare ourselves for the
March 29 elections - it happened in 2000 and
in 2002 as well.
The question is what has changed - that makes it
different this time for
ZANU (PF) not to rig the upcoming elections? Who is
likely to be the messiah
Tsvangirai or Makoni? Are we heading for another
disappointing long weekend?
What if Mugabe rigs the election and bestows
himself life president?
With all political signs compelling, we
Zimbabweans must be prepared to
brace for the worst disappointing weekend
ever! The biggest question is
whether we can be worse off than we are at the
moment? Inflation rate of
over 150,000%, 85% unemployment rate, life
expectancy of just 34 years and
an octogenarian president who plans to leave
office at the age of 90 or are
100 years.
Surely, if God does really
exist this is the time that his testimony must be
seen in the light of
delivering salvation to the people of Zimbabwe long
forgotten by everybody
except nobody. The fact that we have been reduced to
inhuman surrogates does
not reflect what we are or who we are as an African
nation, if it all we
deserve better leadership now than we where a million
years
ago.
Mugabe has always made sure that those in charge of rigging him to
power are
well fed at least a few months before the election, is it not what
is
happening now? Ladies and gentlemen the dogs are out again! The service
chiefs one by one will start giving allegiance to Mugabe's war credentials
and even unashamedly declaring war if elections are won by any other than
Mugabe, here is a few;
"Most of us in here are truly owners of the
land. This is the sovereignty we
should defend at all costs because for us
to get at this point others had to
lose their lives. At this point our gains
should never be reversed," Chihuri
said.
I have lifted the following
depressing newspaper reading for your own
consumption. Harare - One of
Zimbabwe's top defence forces chiefs says he
will not salute former finance
minister Simba Makoni or opposition leader
Morgan Tsvangirai if either wins
the March 29 presidential poll, it was
reported Friday.
'I am giving
you an order to vote for the President,' Zimondi told senior
army officers
at a ceremony in Harare on Thursday.
One needs to understand the
structure of the army, CIO and the police. It is
not the army chiefs or
police chiefs expressing their opinion, no, they are
expressing the whims of
their master Robert Mugabe. We all know that all top
officers of each of the
said units are appointed on partisan basis; you have
to be ZANU (PF) both in
blood and soul.
Even in MDC we are making the same mistake, we have of
late elected a
former Senior Assistant Commissioner Chawora (shortly a
number 3 man from
Chihuri) to lead the party in UK. He was officer
commanding the force that
arrested and incarcerated me in Harare for giving
Mugabe a finger. Surely it
should be common sense that the man is still
connected to his masters or is
it his former masters after all he was
appointed by Mugabe himself. How
confidential is our records as a party
now?
People must be made to know that in the vent of Mugabe losing the
elections;
of course in a free and fair election he will lose, nothing will
happen.
Those are empty threats meant to divert us from the elections while
Mugabe
is busy rigging, no army can withstand the people's revolution whose
time
has come. As much as Mugabe went to war to fight injustice so can we!
Zimbabweans out there, I urge you all to come out in your millions and vote
for change, vote for an MDC government, lets save Zimbabwe. We can do it and
the time is now!
Going back to Makoni, while many will not dispute
that he stands out of the
current ZANU (PF) crop of leadership, he cannot
absolve himself from blame
for as long as he claims to still belong to ZANU
(PF). He is better off
joining MDC where the grass roots are and I am sure
MDC will put him to good
use. It has never happened in Africa that you can
win a presidential
election as an independent worse still without grass
roots support.
We know Mugabe is busy rigging, and he must be warned that
we have the
capacity to be free with or without him.
"Politicians
risk being irrelevant for advocating strategies out of their
political
capacity. This is not a game of loosely knitted words; it is about
action
and indeed shouldering surmountable risks. Politics is not a
business; it is
about building a viable national pride against all odds,
bulldozing the
obstacles along the way no matter what it takes"
Elliot Pfebve is a
political activist and commentator who had fought
elections in an MDC ticket
against Border Gezi and Elliot Manyika.
New Zimbabwe
By Lebo
Nkatazo
Last updated: 03/18/2008 07:43:32
THE Zimbabwe government on
Monday announced the appointment of new Electoral
Court judges following a
2005 Supreme Court ruling that the court was not
properly constituted, and
its decisions null and void.
The new Electoral Court is made up of Harare
justices Antonia Guvava and
Tendai Uchena and in Bulawayo, Nicholas
Ndou.
The Registrar of the High Court, Charles Nyatanga, will double up
as the
registrar of the electoral court.
In 2005, President Robert
Mugabe blasted Justice Uchena for a judgment in
which he said former MDC
Chimanimani MP Roy Bennett could seek re-election
in the constituency even
though he was still serving a jail sentence for
flooring justice minister
Patrick Chinamasa, the previous year during a
parliamentary
debate.
The judge said Bennett was not a criminal as his offence, that of
pushing
Chinamasa, was not covered in the criminal statutes.
Mugabe
said the judgment was "absolute nonsense."
Justice Uchena, with consent
from both parties, later withdrew the judgment
paving the way for Bennett's
wife Heather to contest and lose to Zanu PF's
candidate and the current
Water Resources Minister, Munacho Mutezo.
Heather and 15 other MDC losing
candidates later challenged the ruling party's
electoral victory but the
Electoral Court dismissed their challenge.
The Supreme Court later
nullified the Electoral Court's findings on the
grounds that the Chief
Justice had wrongly constituted it after consulting
the Judge President
instead of the Judicial Services Commission as
stipulated by the
constitution.
In 2007, the government amended the Electoral Act so that
it could not
contravene the constitution, paving the way for the latest
appointments.
Zimbabweans vote in elections on March 29 and any electoral
disputes will be
referred to the Electoral Court.
The President of the Republic of
Zimbabwe
His Excellency President Robert G. Mugabe
Office of the
President
Munhumutapa Building
Samora Machel Avenue/ 3rd Street
Harare,
Zimbabwe
17 March 2008.
Your
Excellency,
RE: Retirement and Acceptance of the Presidential
Election Outcome
I am an exiled Zimbabwean citizen, respectfully
writing to express my
unreserved revulsion to your deafening silence as both
the President of
Zimbabwe and the Commander-In-Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence
Forces (ZDF),
over the recent toxic and provocative utterances by your
appointed Military,
Para-military, and Police Commanders.
Mr.
President, the era of repressive military adventures in modern Africa is
over. Incendiary seditious threats of a coup d'état and to democracy, belong
to the past. Your esteemed office has to repudiate the offending Defence
Force Officers, who have preemptively threatened the imminent will of the
people.
May I humbly remind you, Mr. President that your
muteness on this grave
matter is clear acquiescence to the impending
violations of international
humanitarian law which shall inexorably occur
and of which you shall be
clearly culpable.
Zimbabwe is
eagerly awaiting a peaceful election and subsequent
transition.
My umbrage with the intentional misuse of military
power and your government's
constant flagrant violations of the supreme law
of the land, our
constitution, compels me to advise you to plan for a
graceful exit from the
Zimbabwean political landscape after the
elections.
I trust Mr. President, and appeal to your good office,
conscience, and lucid
judgement, that the elections are free and fair. I
further request that you
proclaim your austere adherence to the African
Union (AU), Southern African
Development Community (SADC), United Nations
(UN), and internationally
accepted election standards to which Zimbabwe is a
signatory.
Africa and the international community await your
dignified exit and long
overdue retirement. At 84, Mr. President, you are
now too old, have failed
to understand the youth of the nation, and cling to
archaic antiquated
ideals. Zimbabwe seeks to reclaim its rightful place
amongst the league of
progressive nations. Do what is best for Zimbabwe and
end your legacy
honourably.
Yours
Sincerely,
Phil Matibe.