The MDC entered the 2002 Presidential election fully aware that the rules of the game were stark against democracy.

Since 2000, we participated in all the by-elections because of our firm belief in taking over power through democratic means.

The image of opposition parties in Africa has been severely dented by the apparent readiness to use arms to deal with post-colonial dictatorships. The results have been often been chaotic and unpredictable. That route has never been an option for the MDC.

But an analysis of the Zengeza by-election shows that political competition here remains a bloody affair 24 years after independence. Zanu PF is prepared to kill and satisfy its hunger for power and oppression.

Francis Chinozvinya, an MDC activist was shot dead on Sunday in a Zanu PF raid at the home of the MDC candidate James Makore in Zengeza. Another MDC youth, Arthur Gunzvenzve, was shot in the leg and taken to hospital. Scores of other MDC supporters and activists were seriously injured since the start of the campaign in Zengeza.

We condemn the continuous descent into thuggery, lawlessness and mayhem in the general body politic in Zimbabwe. Elections, which should reflect the exercise of our sovereignty in the selection of our leaders should never become open seasons for murder, torture, beatings and violence.

Earlier, more than 200 voters in a voting queue were attacked and chased away by a riotous Zanu PF group. No arrests were made despite the fact that the perpetrators committed the crime right in front of members of the police.

One polling station was sealed off and the Zanu PF militia threw stones and other objects at voters wishing to cast their ballots. Zengeza gave the people of Zimbabwe a foretaste of the chaos that awaits the nation in 2005. Conducting any election in this manner affects the secrecy of the ballot and must be condemned.

The perversion of our electoral system started in earnest during the Parliamentary election when it became clear to Robert Mugabe that Zanu PF was in trouble with the people

Apart from express violence, open intimidation and other clear physical infringements, the legal management and the secrecy of the ballot itself became a direct casualty of Mugabe’s desperate ploy to influence any election outcome.

Five years ago, the people expressed their utmost displeasure with the office of the Registrar General. In all the provinces, the people stated that the current manner in which elections are conducted was unacceptable in a democracy. The people want an Independent Electoral Commission.

I argued in my election petition in the High Court in November 2003 that the Electoral Supervisory Commission lacked the necessary independence to conduct a free and fair election. In March 2002, the ESC comprised of four members, instead of the five required by the Constitution. The anomaly made the ESC legally unsuitable to exercise its full functions and this resulted in fatally flawed Presidential election.

The Electoral Act clearly states that, if the ESC requests, a minister may second civil servants to the staff of the Commission for the purposes of assisting in the running of an election. This did not happen in 2002.

Instead, Robert Mugabe issued a decree four days before voting began directing Cabinet ministers to appoint staff, not necessarily civil servants, to the ESC at a time when the Commission had not requested for additional resources.

You will recall that in 2002 thousands of soldiers were deployed countrywide to campaign for Mugabe. After their campaigns, they were appointed to ESC to supervise that election. How does one expect a villager’s secret vote when the previous night an armed soldier visited villager at home, campaigning for Zanu PF, only to turn up the following morning, in civilian clothing, at a polling station as an election agent or an ESC official?

Mugabe violated the Electoral Act and compromised the independence of the ESC by ordering it to employ soldiers he selected to run the election.

Despite our advice and protests, Mugabe remained adamant that he was right. He is likely to continue behaving in that manner in 2005 knowing fully well that such an act affects an election outcome in his favour. The practice compromises the secrecy of the ballot.

At night the soldiers moved from one household to another and the following morning the same individuals were seen in polling booths supervising the actual voting. This frightened thousands of voters. The practice makes a mockery of the secrecy of the ballot.

More recently in Gutu North, Zanu PF forced chiefs, headmen and village heads to commandeer ordinary villagers to polling stations and make sure they vote for that party. Out of fear, these community leaders complied and banned our rallies in their areas. The practice compromises the secrecy of the ballot.

Last week, the MDC stated that the latest proposals to amend the Electoral Act were another step in the wrong direction by the Zanu PF government.

We argued that substantive amendments are indeed required to the existing Electoral Act in order to harmonise its provisions with SADC Norms and Standards for elections, adopted by the SADC Parliamentary Forum Plenary Assembly on 25 March 2001.

However, the amendments proposed in the Bill, are the very anti-thesis of harmonisation; in fact they demonstrate the gulf of difference between the Zimbabwe government and its SADC counterparts with respect to the management and conduct of elections.

Botswana, South Africa, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique and Namibia will conduct elections in strict accordance with agreed SADC standards. Why should Zimbabwe be allowed to swim against the tide of progress, electoral probity and decency, transparency and basic reason?

The proposed amendments strengthen the status quo in relation to the flawed administration and management of elections. This is illustrated by an amendment that gives the state sole control of the voter education process through a partisan ESC, whose staff includes members of military appointed by Mugabe. The plan seeks to compromise the secrecy of the ballot.

As you participate in your national elections, voters in South Africa, Malawi, Namibia and Mozambique please kindly spare a thought for your counterparts in Zimbabwe who 24 years after independence, are still being denied their basic democratic right of casting their ballots in a free and fair election.

You will recall that in 2002 all the results in the Presidential election are despatched to an exclusive place called a command centre where the opposition is barred. Here results were analysed by carefully selected Zanu PF team before they were announced to the nation. Such actions undermine people’s confidence in the secrecy of the ballot.

The Zimbabwe Constitution says the electoral law governing Presidential and Parliamentary elections must be passed by Parliament. But the current Electoral Act delegates Mugabe to change, make additions to, and even to delete the same act. The proposed amendments ignore this crucial part whose net effect is an attack on the secrecy of the ballot.

The Electoral Act as it is presently constituted violates the Constitution in that it allows Robert Mugabe, a very rough player, to define the rules of the game. Section 158 in particular violates the principle of the separation of powers between the legislature, the executive and the judiciary.

Mugabe loves Section 158 as it allows him to unilaterally shift the goal posts at will and without Parliamentary scrutiny. He will certainly apply it extensively in 2005. I say so because in 2002, Mugabe – among other infringements -- used Section 158 to close the voters roll on 10 January 2002.

He quietly re-opened the registration of voters. He announced later, through the publication of a similar decree, that the voters roll was closed on 29 January 2002. After realising that the numbers he wanted were insufficient, he re-opened roll, again quietly. The nation was only told on 1 March 2002 that the voters roll was to be closed on 3 March 2002.

In so doing, Mugabe repeatedly and secretly extended the cut-off date for voter registration and allowed for the late registration of voters in areas perceived to be sympathetic to himself and his Zanu PF party.

Using Section 158, Mugabe made changes and additions to conduct of the election on 17 January 2002, on 6 February, on 22 February (twice), on 1 March (twice), on 3 March, on 5 March (four times) and on 8 March (three times).

We challenged this strange behaviour in the Supreme Court on 8 March. Surprisingly, the court reserved judgement when it knew that voting was due to start the following morning, thus turning our challenge into a mere academic exercise.

Still fresh in our minds is the manner in which Mugabe used Section 158 to limit the number of voting stations in urban areas, precisely because he realised the MDC was the strongest political party in these constituencies. This was a direct act of political discrimination against urban voters.

A smart attempt to clean up the Electoral Act must look at Section 158. I believe this section is unconstitutional as it effectively grants unlimited powers to Mugabe. He used Section 158 to deny large numbers of Zimbabweans their vote after he re-classified them as foreigners. He used the section to ban all postal votes from ordinary Zimbabweans.

While the Electoral Act specifies that the staff of the ESC must be members of the public service, Mugabe directed military officers to take over the running of the ESC. Section 113 of the Constitution excludes the Prison Service, the Police Force and the Defence Forces from its definition of the public service. Mugabe was aware of that. Using Section 158, he changed Section 11 of the Electoral Act with the following decree:

“Notwithstanding subsection (1) of Section 11 of the Act, the Minister or any other Minister may assign to the Commission such persons in the employment of the state as may be necessary to perform secretarial and administrative functions of the Commission.”

The Constitution forbids this form of interference in the work of the Commission as it states clearly in Section 61 that the ESC shall not be subject to the direction or control of any person or authority.

Come to 2005, what safeguards do we as Zimbabweans have to curb the kind of wayward behaviour we saw from Zanu PF in the past five years? Are we ready as a nation go through the same agony we endured in 2000 and in 2002? What kind of life did the Zimbabwean voter go through in the various by-elections conducted in this country since 2000? Are these ordeals necessary if the outcome is going to be pre-determined anyway?

Instead of the people focussing on whether we, as the MDC, plan to participate in 2005 or not, debate must be re-directed to the crucial issue at hand: the conditions on the ground.

We are not helping ourselves as Zimbabweans if we continue debating the merits and disadvantages of end result, while ignoring the process leading to elections. This is a life-and-death subject. On Sunday Francis Chinozvinya died for democracy. He joins hundreds of MDC supporters who lost their lives; thousands who were displaced, raped and maimed while fighting for change.

Our supporters, various opinion-formers and policy makers, the media and the international community must assist Zimbabwe in directing debate on the centre of the dispute.

The electoral conditions in this country are a ready recipe for confrontation and perpetual contest. Zimbabweans, SADC and the international community are aware of the flaws in our electoral system.

If Zanu PF maintains its stubbornness and refuses to yield to pressure, how should Zimbabweans behave? Do we still participate in conditions similar to what we witnessed in Zengeza? I have a responsibility as the leader of the largest political party in Zimbabwe. I have a contract with the people. Do I still urge them to soldier on in the face of death, beatings, ballot theft and a direct denial to exercise their sovereign will? The people are arguing that they have tried to use the democratic route available to them. They say they have given the MDC their support. They have come out and tried to vote. But their voice has been repeated stolen.

If we go ahead and take part in the 2005 Parliamentary election under the same conditions and the outcome is tampered with, what recourse is at our disposal? Do we resort to the courts for relief and justice? We tried that route after 2000 and it took us nowhere. The media could play a direct role in shaping public debate on the conditions for elections in Zimbabwe.

As we have seen in Harare where democracy was completely shut out by Zanu PF, the struggle for change remains an unfinished business. The city council has been barred from fulfilling the MDC programme. The party’s development agenda was totally disabled by the regime. The people, through their elected representatives, are being denied the right to govern themselves.

We need to pressure Zanu PF to listen to the voice of reason and create an enabling climate for the registration of a genuine will of the people through free and fair elections. We are concerned about the secrecy of the ballot and the process leading to the day of voting. Some Zimbabweans are keen to blame the victim in times of crisis. Why? A change in conditions leads to a win-win situation. Zanu PF, if it wins such an election, will get the legitimacy Mugabe desperately needs today. If the MDC wins, the country will rollback to its former self: a fountain of intellect and a promising industrial hub of southern Africa.

Free elections are the cornerstone of any democracy and progress. International human rights instruments recognise this fact. Article 21 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights thus provides:

Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives…. The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

Our consultations with our supporters and party structures are continuing. We shall announce our intentions after we have exhausted debate on the strategies we seek to deploy to compel Zanu PF to change the conditions for the 2005 election.

In our conversations, at our homes, indeed at any gathering we must talk about the road to 2005, in particular the conditions under which we, as a nation, are expected to make a decision affecting the future of our country.

We have to shape the future. We have to think seriously about life after Zanu PF is gone. The crisis is deepening. We have a chance to change the course of politics next year. But the conditions must be right. With courage and hope, we shall overcome fear and effect fundamental changes to our ailing political culture in Zimbabwe.

President

SOKWANELE

Enough is Enough

Zimbabwe

PROMOTING NON-VIOLENT PRINCIPLES TO ACHIEVE DEMOCRACY

We have a fundamental right to freedom of expression!

Sokwanele reporter

30 March 2004

The Chiredzi district, once the centre of a thriving cane growing industry producing close on 600,000 tons of sugar cane annually, is today a mere shadow of its former glory. Prior to 2000 when the devastating land invasions began, this district was home to approximately 56 cane growers who employed about 3,500 workers and generated an income in excess of US$ 10 million per annum. The families of the workers enjoyed the benefit of several well-run clinics and schools, and the export earnings in sugar and tropical fruits brought in vast sums of valuable foreign currency. This year only 345,000 tons has been produced, or 58 per cent, of the normal harvest. Huge quantities of sugar cane have been left to rot in the fields and scores of workers laid off, while the original farmers and resettled A2 farmers continue a protracted legal battle over entitlement to the proceeds of the crop that was harvested. The dispute has already led to angry and sometimes violent confrontations between the illegal A2 occupants and the commercial farmers they have, in large measure, displaced.

That the commercial farmers have the law on their side is clear. Last year the High Court overturned the section 8 orders served on them which had previously forced them to leave their properties. On 13^th March 2003 the commercial farmers’ ownership of the land and the crops was reconfirmed by the High Court. Copies of these rulings were served on the Zimbabwe Republic Police in Chiredzi. Furthermore the commercial farmers held the only valid cane purchase agreements and milling agreements with Hippo Valley Estates sugar mills. And as if that was not enough, through the Utete Commission the authorities had promised to uphold SADCC protocol and safeguard Mauritian and South African nationals and their property in terms of their country-to-country accords – a significant number of the commercial farmers originating from these countries.

However, as is so often the case in Zimbabwe today, having the law on one’s side counts for little when it comes to contending with illegal settlers, negotiating with multinationals that are anxious to retain the regime’s favour, or even obtaining the assistance of the police to enforce one’s rights.

Hippo Valley Estates sugar mills are only permitted to enter into purchase and milling agreements with persons having legal tenure of the land. As early as April 2003 legal practitioners acting for the commercial farmers informed the Hippo Valley and Triangle Mills in writing of the High Court rulings confirming their clients’ legal tenure. This did not stop Hippo Valley Estates however from subsequently issuing cane purchase agreements to the A2 settlers illegally in occupation of the land – thus producing a bizarre situation in which two agreements were in existence for the same crop. Hence the legal wrangle ensuing over title to the crop delivered to the mills. Hippo Valley Estates had knowingly accepted the crop illegally harvested by the A2 settlers and even assisted them with their own haulage equipment in transporting the cane to their mill, thereby raising false expectations that the settlers would be paid for the crop.

The police failed to act on the orders of the High Court to reinstate the commercial farmers to their lands, to protect them from assault and intimidation and to evict the A2 settlers who had illegally taken possession of their properties. In April 2003 a letter was sent to the police giving details of criminal and potentially life-threatening situations occurring on some of the farms, to which the police had not responded. The incidents included the assault of farm workers ordered off the land by Border Gezi youth, breaking and entering homesteads still illegally occupied by settlers, looting of properties and intimidation of the legal owners and their families. This letter and several others which followed failed to bring about any satisfactory response on the part of the police. No arrests were made even following an attempted abduction of one farmer and serious assault of another by known assailants whose names were supplied to the police.

When on 28^th October 2003 the police did finally act, convening a meeting of A2 settlers and commercial farmers, dire threats of violence were made by the settlers against the farmers unless the latter withdrew their legal claim to the crop delivered to the mills, thus allowing the settlers to be paid for it. Although these threats (criminal acts themselves) were made in the presence of the police, the police failed to take any action on them. Immediately after this meeting one farmer wrote to Chief Superintendent P. Ncube of the Chiredzi Police, complaining of the ZRP’s failure to uphold the law and to protect citizens threatened with violence. Fearing physical harm or even death he asked for 24 hour armed protection for himself and his family.

So far as the SADCC protocol is concerned in early February the regime issued a statement to the effect that there is no binding agreement that protects South African or other nationals from land designation.

Hippo Valley Estates themselves were notified in February that their vast holdings must be divided into plots for settlement. Their mill closed down on 25^th January, leaving 500 hectares of cane in the fields that should have been cut and milled last year - their failure to do so being due largely to the diversion of their haulage equipment to assist the A2 settlers transporting their (stolen) cane to the mill. Given that the average yield is 120 tons of sugar cane per hectare Hippo Valley Estates’ loss on this account alone amounts to 60,000 tons.

At the onset of the unlawful farm invasions and until mid 2001 the commercial cane growers perhaps naively believed this regime would protect the sugar cane industry because of its vital strategic importance to the economy. They were proved wrong in this assumption. Until a very short time ago the two multinationals, Hippo Valley Milling Company (owned by the Anglo American Corporation) and Triangle Mills (owned by Hewletts) may have believed that they enjoyed immunity from illegal settlement. Perhaps their bubble is also about to burst as they make the painful discovery that nothing and no-one is sacrosanct to a regime that will sacrifice anyone else’s interest to their own quest to stay in power.

Ends

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