ELECTION rigging allegations involving Nikuv International Projects (NIP), a shadowy Israeli security company which deals with voters’ rolls and handling of election results, deepened this week amid revelations the former Mossad spooks used several methods, including producing different copies of the voters’ rolls and setting up sneaky polling stations, to fix elections in favour of President Robert Mugabe and Zanu PF.
This comes amid revelations Nikuv – which handles voters’ rolls and election results, as well as offer intelligence services such as debugging and counter-surveillance – hastily shut down its Avondale offices in Harare three days after elections and relocated to an unknown Ballantyne Park address in the capital in what sources said was part of on an ongoing cover up mission as the rigging uproar intensifies.
The cover up also seems to involve Mugabe’s spokesperson George Charamba’s claims last week that the two suspected Nikuv officials, CEO Emmanuel Antebi and his deputy Ammon Peer who visited Mugabe at State House a day before the elections, were Group Five o (G5) executives whose company is currently rehabilitating the country’s highway road network.
While Charamba claims the two dark-haired Jewish-looking men who visited Mugabe and left a black bag were G5 officials, the company’s business development manager Greg Heale, who is based in Johannesburg, denied any of their executives met Mugabe last week.
“Our delegation which visited Zimbabwe came in early July to open two toil gates along the Plumtree/Bulawayo/Harare road but they were not scheduled to meet and did not meet with the president of Zimbabwe,” Heale said.
Another G5 official in Harare also dismissed Charamba’s claims, saying the two men who met Mugabe had nothing to do with the company, thickening the plot currently underway as senior government officials battle to cover up Nikuv’s tracks in the rigging scandal.
Nikuv’s sudden closure of its offices in Avondale also suggested the company’s executives were running scared as the rigging racket escalates.
High-level sources this week said Nikuv, which local representatives include Ron Asher and Eli Antebi, who is the young brother of Emmanuel, operates from different places across Harare.
After hastily closing down the Avondale offices, it is suspected to have shifted its offices to Ballantyne Park in Harare.
The company also operates from the second floor of Registrar General Tobaiwa Mudede’s Makombe Building offices where voters’ registration and the voters’ roll are managed.
Investigations also showed Nikuv also runs a greenhouse warehouse, trading as Pedistock, at Corner Alpes Road and Harare Drive in Borrowdale West where the agents meet for important meetings.
Sources said Nikuv officials also worked out of army headquarters at KGVI where there is a “Situation Room” in which they converge with Joint Operation Command (JOC) chiefs to map out election scenarios and the way forward.
“Nikuv operates from different offices across Harare, including Mudede’s offices and KGVI, where issues to do with voter registration, voters’ roll and election scenarios are discussed,” a source said. “Last week’s results would have been worked out in the ‘Situation Room’ at KGVI or some such command centre.”
Mudede, who sometimes sits in JOC, which brings together army, police and intelligence chiefs, is thought to have been instrumental in the hiring of Nikuv when Dumiso Dabengwa was still Home Affairs minister in 2000.
Dabengwa has confirmed Nikuv was hired in 2000 when he was a minister “to specifically upgrade the computers for the purposes of computerising the central registry, birth certificates, passports and national identity documents”.
Sources said Asher and his colleagues were in charge of the voters’ roll which is riddled with duplicating of names, names of people outside the country, names of dead people and other irregularities which could have been manipulated to engineer results.
“Nikuv ran the show since they handled the voters’ roll and election results,” another source said. “That is why the company’s bosses were in Harare last week. They came and flew back to Tel Aviv last week after doing the job and perhaps with a lucrative new contract in their pocket – signed, sealed and delivered.”
It is said Nikuv’s latest contract was worth US$13 million. Apart from Zimbabwe, the company has made a fortune through its activities in Angola, Botswana, Ghana, Nigeria, Lesotho and Zambia where it was taken to court in 1996 on allegations of election rigging.
Nikuv offices were recently raided by the Lesotho Directorate on Corruption and Economic Offenses over a dodgy US$30 million passports contract amid allegations of bribery in which Peer was reportedly caught in the crackdown. In Botswana Nikuv got a controversial US$9,42 million contract with the country’s Home Affairs and registry offices.
It was also a bidder in Ghana’s US$60 million national identification card project in 2004 which got entangled in a web of corruption in neighbouring Nigeria where for strongman, ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo, had to sack some ministers.
Investigations also showed the indelible ink for elections supplied by Printlink (Pvt) Ltd, owned by Harare businessman Dave Gordon, could have been diluted and could be easily washed off resulting in people voting more than once in various constituencies.
Nikuv reportedly also issued fake voter registration slips which were used by Zanu PF supporters to vote at multiple polling stations. This was prevalent in Harare where police arrested individuals in Hatfield found in possession of multiple copies of voter registration slips, as well as in Mount Pleasant where busloads of baldheaded youths masquerading as police recruits were unearthed.
Nikuv’s rigging allegations were worsened by reports by a private South African-based intelligence, Nasini Projects say the Israeli firm supplied a special watermarked ballot used to give Mugabe a resounding victory.
“From our findings so far we are 99,9% convinced the election was rigged via a ballot paper. A special watermarked ballot paper was used to give President Mugabe a resounding victory,” Nasini CEO Lucia Mordi said.
“The ballot had a water X against Mugabe’s name such that if any ink is placed on the paper the substance on the paper will react and remove the ink and activate the watermarked X into print.”
However, sources say this was unlikely because voters’ registration and voters’ roll manipulation were Nikuv’s most reliable rigging mechanisms in Zimbabwe.
via http://www.theindependent.co.zw/2013/08/09/election-rigging-scandal-deepens/
COMMENTS
It is necessary we understand that rigging is and has been the bloodline of Zanu survival. A party devoid of new ideas but fighting to stay put in power is always a liability. The culture of winning the liberation struggle need not blind people to realities of change as an on going process. Zanu is static and takes us continually to the memories of 1980s that are now out of context to both the new generation and development technology in place. It is a shame that always besets politics of decay that mercenaries who are bought by money abound in the world to wreck weak nations. Zanu in 2000s and subsequent years has always rigged elections to survive. This time every Zimbabwe must declare war on Zanu and remove them democratically. International observing is a must and security reforms must be enacted in the national interest. We fight on focused on declaring elections illegal.
Well done Canada for protesting at world tourism being held in circumstances that gives the world an image of desperation to legitimize undemocratic strands of an illegitimate regime that keeps failing to attain legitimacy. The country is underdeveloped because funds are used to keep none performing and dysfunctional government going at the expense of socio-economic development. These millions would have built hospitals and clinics where people including Mugabe would be receiving treatments than going to the east or west for treatment. These practices need to stop.
Could ZanuPF have bussed a million people in one day without anyone noticing? Some rigging claims are an insult to the intelligence. MDC lost because the party lacked enlightened leadership.
er not sure where you read in that article that a million people were bussed around in one day. Your reading comprehension is an insult to the intelligence of anyone who bothered to read your comment.
chimusoro akadzidza nachinotimba so haisi mhosva yake classmate to be blamed
Tawanda- Every polling booth is allowed MDC observers who check the box is empty at the start, observe every voter, then the final counting. The only way Zanu PF could have cheated is if ghost or dummy voters were put on the roll as claimed by MDC. But these multiple voters still need to be taken to various polling booths-that means bussing a million people in a single day. If you think the cheating was done in another way I would be most interested in knowing how? Provide evidence!
The Nikuv people should be very nervous now that there are claims that the ZANU PF Minister of Mines has purportedly entered into an agreement to supply Iran with uranium. This could only have been done with the connivance of Mugabe. The Mossad in israel are ruthless and vindictive. They will also have both the tacit and overt support of the USA. I would think that if any of them return to Israel they will find they have to answer questions and if they dont return to Israel they will find that their families there are going to used to force them to return.
Is Gift Chimanikire a Zanu pf official? Please check before you comment and mislead the world.
what is important is the way forward. stop complaining u pple. lets work n build zim as one pple. those who r in dospora shuld contribute knowlege n skill to turn our resources into real wealth. bt if ey just talk. to hell
No doubt the elections were rigged,,,there r no celebrations, pple are watching over their shoulders at the moment,,u can’t trust anyone. That’s how Zanu pf operates, scare mongering. If one is in the diaspora, with these goons in power would you invest in Zim,,???
Tawanda- Every polling booth is allowed MDC observers who check the box is empty at the start, observe every voter, then the final counting. The only way Zanu PF could have cheated is if ghost or dummy voters were put on the roll as claimed by MDC. But these multiple voters still need to be taken to various polling booths-that means bussing a million people in a single day. If you think the cheating was done in another way I would be most interested in knowing how? Provide evidence!
Mukoma Chimsoro, It is common knowledge that extra ballots were printed. When the recruits and Zanu messengers were voting, they managed to fold in extra ballot papers. One vote equaled two. Some people voted with false id’s to increase the margin. Now ZEC is busy collating the ballot papers and it will all add up as more blanks are being printed after the election by police printers. To all Zimbabweans, the outcome is that we have a new government. Embrace them and work with them. I hope our President gives us a decent cabinet.
300,000 turned away and 250,000 assisted voters….figures never heard of in any election….plus the ploy from NIKUV… who it is clear mislaid the foundation… Israelis … quoted in Gods Word as “stiff necked people”. To me this should be discussed with Mr Benjamin Netanyahu (for whom I have enourmous respect)so these creeps can be made to stand up and answer for their evil deeds. To be part of a scheme to sell a country out for $10,000,000 means that they must be the lowest form of human life, along with those who hired them…They will be judged by the King of Kings.