How Did Mugabe Win Re-Election?
The man who knows the secrets of Mugabe's re-election is
Tobaiwa Mudede,
the
Registrar-General, the outspokenly
pro-Mugabe official who runs all
Zimbabwe
's elections.
More than a month before the election Mudede told a
meeting
at
the International School in Harare that he could imagine
no
circumstances
in
which he would declare anyone other
than Mugabe the election winner.
Pictures in the state-run Herald
of how the results were announced are
almost beyond parody. In the
centre sits Obriel Mpofu, who announced the
results on TV, flanked
by Mudede and a series of other Mugabe loyalists,
including the
Police Commissioner, Augustine Chihuri, in full uniform.
These
are not only the men who know the secrets of the results but also
the
men
who, in large part, manufactured them.
A great deal of the mystery of Zimbabwean elections resides in
the
electoral
register. Although the law says that the
public have the right to
inspect
the register at will, in
practise Mudede keeps it a tight secret. It
took
the Zimbabwe
Civic Education Trust (Zimcet) no less than four court
orders
to
finally get Mudede allow them to see a copy - making them the first
citizens ever to see the document - and despite three further
court
orders
requiring him to show them the supplementary
voters' roll, he has to
still
to comply with that
request.
The register Zimcet saw of 5.2 million voters
was supposed to be closed.
However, in the remaining two months
Zanu-PF rushed out and illegally
registered 400,000 extra voters in
rural areas, all of whom Mudede added
to
his final roll
which came out at 5,612,272 voters. The MDC made urgent
application
to the Supreme Court that this clandestinely compiled
supplementary
roll not be used but Mugabe's handpicked Chief Justice
Godfrey
Chidyausiku declined to make a ruling on this application - and,
indeed,
has
yet to do so.
It is
child's play to show that this voters' roll of 5.6 million is
nonsense. The inter-censal survey of 1997 suggests that there are
only
12
million Zimbabweans and market research organisations
such as Probe
Market
Research (a Gallup subsidiary) still use
that figure today: while the
birth
rate is high there is
also a calamitous Aids death rate and many
continue
to
leave to seek work in South Africa. With an average family size of six
children, over 50% of Zimbabweans are under 15 and 60% are under
18.
This
leaves only 4.8 million adults of voting age. Probe's
research shows
that
the maximum who have ever registered to vote
is 80%, suggesting that the
maximum number of names on the roll
should be 3,840,000. Thus around 1.8
million of the people on
Mudede's roll do not really exist - thus
providing
him and
Zanu-PF with a vast reservoir of fictional voters who can be
"mobilised" at will when the going gets tough.
Zimcet's audit of the roll - carried out for them by Probe on a
representative national sample - reveals that only 50% of the names
on
the
roll actually live at the addresses given and are thus
entitled to vote
in
their constituency. Generously assuming that
a further 10% have moved
but
stayed within the same
constituency, Zimcet came up with the figure of
only
a
maximum of 2,304,600 being legally able to vote (ie 60% of 3,840,000).
Even if one then assumes a voter turnout of 75%, this means that
the
number
of votes cast could not exceed 1,728,450. Let
us, however, be generous
and
assume that the total population is
12.5 million, that the over-18
population is thus 5 million, that
the maximum number on the roll is
thus
4
million. With
only 60% of them then being found in their right
constituencies
there would then be 2.4 million legally entitled voters
which, on a
75% turnout, comes to 1.8 million votes actually cast. Even
if
one bumps this figure up a little to allow for army/police/other public
servants allowed a postal vote out of their constituency it is
difficult
to
see how one gets to 1.9 million votes cast. In
addition, however, let us
assume - generously - that as many as
200,000 voters now living outside
their constituencies travel back
there in order to vote. This would
bring
total votes cast to 2.1
million.
In practise, though, the number was bound to
be very much lower because
of
the strenuous attempts made by the
Mugabe government to strike
opposition
voters off the roll.
First, anyone with any claim to a foreign passport
(often even if
they had renounced such a claim) was struck off,
including
even
Sir Garfield Todd, a citizen of 67 years' standing. Then the
million
Zimbabweans abroad were disenfranchised and many scores of thousands
of
farm
workers were driven off their farms and out of the
constituencies in
which
they were registered. And, most
notoriously of all, the government went
to
elaborate lengths to
depress turnout in the opposition's urban bastions,
reducing the
number of polling stations to the point where it would have
taken
Harare citizens nine whole days to vote if they had all tried to.
This
made certain that turnout was far less than 75%. Indeed, in
the biggest
province - Harare - turnout was under 50%, by express
design.
According to Mudede the results were as
follows:
Registered voters: 5,612,272
Total votes cast: 3,048,752
Mugabe
1,688,939
Tsvangirai 1,254,930
Kumbele 31,179
Maya
12,376
Siwela 12,169
Spoilt 49,156
(Oddly, the
totals in the second column come to 3,048,749 - leaving 3
votes
missing.)
In fact these numbers are quite impossible. Fraud
is not only patent
but
clearly took place on an overwhelming
scale. The key was the fact that
the
MDC were unable to
monitor 52% of polling stations and 9/120 counting
stations. The
name of the game was stuffed ballot boxes. But it was
perfectly
clear, even by March 10, what was going on - with huge
turnouts
being recorded for Mashonaland villages in which observers saw almost no
one
queueing to vote at all. The Economist (March 16, p.29) records
some of
the
absurdities this produced with villages of 300
producing turnouts of
1,000
and so on. But it is important to
start from the global situation set
out
below.
Even if one takes the higher population estimate any figure of
over 1.9
million voters is suspect and any figure above 2.1 million
is a
downright
fraud. In fact, according to Mudede no less than
3,048,752 people voted.
The
implication is that somewhere
between and 900,000 to 1.1 million votes
were
manufactured.
It's not difficult to see how. According to Zimcet 27% of
the
names on the register were either dead, abroad or no one at all
knew
where
they were. It's quite possible that Mudede has just
been leaving dead
people
's names on the list for years and
years past. In addition, of course,
huge
numbers more are
now living out of their constituencies so if someone
votes
in their name in their constituency this can only be because they have
travelled the necessary distance to do so - or by fraud.
One begins to understand why Mudede has been so reluctant to
allow
anyone
to
inspect the roll, indeed why he has
defied repeated court orders
requiring
him to do so, and why he
has also turned down generous offers from
foreign
donors to help
carry out a comprehensive re-organisation and
verification
of
the roll. As it is the roll is a shambles - Zimcet found that
only
31%
of
the population actually appeared on the roll
in the constituency in
which
they said they had registered - but
it has been an extremely useful
shambles
for Zanu-PF. One
result of the work Zimcet and I have done to date is to
make one
realise that the official turnout given for the 2000
parliamentary
elections of 2,490,496 is also way too high. In those
elections the MDC
trailed with 47.1% to Zanu-PF's 48.3% - on the
official figures. In
fact,
putting together the Zimcet figures
with the fact that in two separate
Probe
surveys which I
carried out on the 2000 elections the figure for turnout
varied
between 69% and 71% - which one may standardise at 70%. Assuming
that the higher figure of 2.4 million were legally entitled to vote, one
may
calculate that the right number of votes cast should have been
1,680,000
plus, again, 100,000 postal votes from public servants
plus 200,000 more
travelling back to their home constituencies to
vote - giving 1,980,000
votes as a maximum.
The implication is that the MDC would really have won the June 2000
elections handily but for a minimum of 510,000 manufactured votes. If
we
assume that all these votes were Zanu-PF votes and that the
figures for
Others (115,000) and MDC (1,172,000) were genuine, one
may recalculate
those
figures. On that assumption we find
that the MDC would have won 59.2% of
the
vote to Zanu-PF's
35% and Others 5.8%, a landslide which would have
robbed
Mugabe of a parliamentary majority - and thus control of the
government
-
two years ago. Thus massive electoral fraud is not new in
Zimbabwe:
without
it Mugabe would have been out of power
some time ago.
We are now in a position to understand
the even greater fraud
perpetrated
last week. The first element
was, of course, terror. In 2000 we found in
two
separate
surveys that 13% of voters admitted that they had voted against
"the party I really preferred" because of intimidation. We suspect that
the
real number was greater, not only because 31% of voters said
they knew
people who had voted in this fashion but because it is
rather
humiliating -
and perhaps unsafe - for voters to own
up to having been successfully
bullied. Be that as it may, the
scale of terror in 2002 was vastly
greater
than in 2000. The
number of voters forced to vote against their
convictions
by direct physical threat must have been at least 13% again - and was
probably far more. Throughout the province of Mashonaland West men
were
noticed sitting in polling stations taking the names of those
who voted
and
in what order, a clearly intimidatory device
for villagers had been told
it
would then be possible to
divine how each of them had voted - and woe
betide
those
had cast a ballot against Mugabe.
Second, there were
the deliberate disenfranchisements noted above - and
third the
forcible way in which police and army personnel were made to
cast
postal ballots for Mugabe under the eyes of the authorities:
angry
letters
from policemen made to vote thus against their
will are now appearing
pseudonymously in the independent press
here.
Fourth, there was the deliberate ruses used to prevent
voters in Harare
from being able to cast their ballots - the
insistence, against court
rulings, on having council and mayoral
elections on the same day in the
capital so that voting would take
three times longer; the illegal
closure
of
polling
stations for many hours, also in the face of court rulings; the
deliberately slow handling of voters by officials within the stations
which
sometimes slowed throughput to as little as 20 voters an
hour; the use
of
police to harass and tear-gas voting queues and
of Zanu-PF youths to
barge
into the queues, creating
disturbances and frightening the timid away
and,
when they had
voted, to stand in the queues again in order to lengthen
them;
and then the arrest of people in particularly long queues
for
"attempting
to
vote twice".
But most of all there was ballot stuffing. As one examines the
results
one
can see that this must have gone on quite generally.
In the MDC
strongholds
of Harare, Bulawayo and the two
Matebeleland provinces not only was
turnout
down but, in
the last two months when 400,000 names were clandestinely
added
to the rolls, the numbers registered in these four provinces either
stagnated or actually fell - an astonishing outcome. Across the
country
MDC
monitors were abducted, arrested, assaulted or
chased away from 52% of
all
polling stations, according to their
candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai - thus
creating the possibility for
the police to ship in extra ballot boxes
full
of Mugabe votes,
doubtless prepared well in advance. Given that the
officials in
charge of polling stations were arm y, police, civil
servants
or war vets all hand-picked for their pro-government
loyalties, the
insertion of these boxes would not have been
difficult. Then, in nine of
the
120 counting stations the
MDC agents watching the account were jailed,
assaulted or driven
away. In all nine cases there were large and
unaccountable
increases in turnout - with over 60,000 extra votes cast
than
the doubtless already inflated totals for 2000 - massively in favour
of
Mugabe.
Only the addition of these
extra boxes of Mugabe votes can account for
the
fact that
turnout soared in all the safest Zanu-PF areas even though
observers on the ground found almost no one voting there on the second
day
and generally predicted a very low turnout there. Thus compared
to
turnout
in 2000 (an already inflated figure) turnout rose by
82,000, 80,000 and
60,000 in the three Mashonaland provinces, by
96,000 in Masvingo, 90,000
in
Manicaland and 78,000 in
Midlands - while in the MDC areas it rose
little
or
actually fell. What is particularly striking was the ability of the
government to achieve politically convenient results in
particular
areas.
Thus Manicaland had swung clearly to the MDC
in 2000, much to Mugabe's
fury
and Zanu-PF was determined
to get it back. Yet in 2002 Eddison Zvobgo,
the
Zanu-PF boss of
Manicaland almost openly sided with Tsvangirai, making
it
a
hopelessly lost cause for Mugabe. Yet somehow the votes piled up so
exactly
that Mugabe came out just 3,000 ahead in Manicaland and
thus able to
claim
a
triumph there. Similarly, Jonathan
Moyo, Mugabe's Information Minister,
had
been humiliatingly
beaten by more than 2:1 in Tsholotsho in 2000 - it
was
one of
the safest MDC seats in the country. Thus it was of great
symbolic
importance for Moyo that Mugabe should win Tsholotsho this time -
and
so,
miraculously, he did, by just 0.5%.on a swing
suspiciously four times
higher
than the national average.
Similarly, it was of symbolic importance for
Mugabe that he win his
birthplace of Zvimba by a particularly large
margin -
and
so he did, so much so that in Zvimba South (a tiny village)
more
votes
were cast than in large town like Kwekwe in the
Midlands - a complete
absurdity. In the constituency of Mudzi
Mugabe excelled himself by
achieving
the miracle of a 100%
turnout. But the beauty of Mudede's voters' roll
is
that there
are so many dead or non-existent people on it that there is
huge
room for ballot-stuffing without such suspicious results really
being
necessary at all.
As we have seen
the number of manufactured votes in 2002 was somewhere
between
900,000 and 1.1 million. It must have been the work of many
months
to get this many ballots filled in, ballot boxes sealed etc - that
is,
the
fraud must have been devised and carried out a long time
back. This
would,
of course, explain Mugabe and Zanu-PF's air of
blithe confidence in a
campaign which on any normal basis they
should have expected to lose.
One
would, at the least, have
expected to see Mugabe wear an air of frantic
worry. We now see why
he was so serene. In fact, it seems certain that
despite the
effects of terror and intimidation that he did actually lose
the
election quite heavily. For one must assume that the 900,000 -
1.1
million
manufactured votes were all cast for him and his
winning margin was
given
as
434,009. Even if we take the
lower number of 900,000 stuffed ballots
then
it
would
appear that Tsvangirai actually won the election by 466,000
votes -
that is, Mugabe's correct total should have been just under
790,000.
The extraordinary thing is that only the
Norwegian observers seem to
have
spent any time considering the
defects of the register. Most of the
African
observers were
so concerned to find the elections free and fair that
they
actually delivered their verdicts before the results containing these
extraordinary anomalies were even declared. In the extreme case of
the
South
African observers, who had arrived with strict
instructions to
legitimate
Comrade Mugabe's victory, almost all
the observers had returned home
even
before the results came
out.
RW Johnson
19 March 2002
RW Johnson has carried out six opinion surveys in Zimbabwe. An
Emeritus
Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, he has taught
political science at
the
universities of East Anglia, Oxford,
the Sorbonne (Paris), Natal and
Cape
Town. Formerly director of
the Helen Suzman Foundation, he is the author
of
six books
and many articles in academic journals and the international
press.
| Police block civic protests in
Zimbabwe |
Police in Zimbabwe are blockading towns to stop disputes by civic groups.
Demonstrations have been called at strategic locations across the country in
protest at the recent presidential elections.
Small groups of protestors have been stopped from reaching the planned site
of a march through downtown Harare.
Police manned roadblocks have sealed off the central square and riot police
have been posted on pavements, street corners and at bus and car parks.
Douglas Mwonzora, a spokesman for the organisers says there are no immediate
reports of arrests of demonstrators.
He says police blockades have also prevented protesters gathering in
Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second largest city, and the provincial towns of Mutare and
Gweru.
Authorities have banned the protests under security laws but organisers in
the National Constitutional Assembly have vowed to defy the ban.
Meanwhile, witnesses in Harare say Edwina Spicer, a television journalist,
has been arrested, while apparently filming police deployments.
Spicer, accompanied by her husband, is now being questioned, according to Pat
Lewin, the couple's lawyer.
Police officials were not available for comment on the arrests.
Story filed: 12:25 Saturday 6th April 2002
CNN
Zimbabwe police chase protesters
April 6, 2002 Posted: 5:44 AM EST (1044 GMT)
Opposition has
dismissed Mugabe's reelection as fraudulent
HARARE, Zimbabwe (Reuters) -- Zimbabwean police chased over 100
protesters through the streets of Harare on Saturday in an attempt to break up a
banned demonstration demanding a new constitution.
Zimbabwe introduced tough new security laws this year banning public protests
and gatherings without police approval. Penalties range from fines to a year in
prison.
The demonstration by the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) comes two
days after 350 of its members were arrested for holding an unauthorised meeting.
The NCA wants a new constitution to replace laws that critics say President
Robert Mugabe has used to entrench his rule.
Police had banned the demonstration because they said the political situation
in Zimbabwe was not conducive to protests.
They accused the NCA of trying to "impose its constitution on the
government."
The protest got off to a slow start as riot police broke up small gatherings,
but by mid-morning a sizeable crowd of chanting and shouting protesters had
gathered for the march.
"Police keep breaking us up and we will try to regroup again and march
towards Unity Square (near parliament)," NCA chairman Lovemore Madhuku told
Reuters.
Election criticised
The NCA, a coalition of student and church groups, political parties and
human rights organisations, says deeply rooted flaws in the current constitution
make it impossible to hold free and fair elections in Zimbabwe.
Mugabe was re-elected for a further six-year term last month following an
election which Western countries and the opposition Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC) condemned as fraudulent.
The NCA denies government and police charges that it is pursuing a political
agenda in favour of the MDC.
In February, dozens of riot police armed with batons and guns broke up an
NCA-organised protest against the government's refusal to adopt a new national
supreme law.
In 2000, the NCA was instrumental in the rejection by the majority of
Zimbabweans of a proposed new constitution crafted by a government-appointed
commission, which critics said left Mugabe's overwhelming presidential powers
intact.
Mugabe has amended the constitution 16 times since assuming power at
independence in 1980 in what are seen as attempts to tighten his grip on power.
Yahoo News
Zimbabwe police crack down on protesters
By Stella
Mapenzauswa and Lucia Mutikani
HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwean police
chased protesters demanding a new
constitution through the streets of Harare
today and arrested 20 of them,
according to organisers of the banned
march.
An official for the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA)
said on Saturday
the group's chairman, Lovemore Madhuku, was among the 20 and
that 19 other
people were arrested in protests elsewhere.
They
were the country's first major demonstrations since President Robert
Mugabe
was re-elected last month in a poll Western countries and the
opposition
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) condemned as
fraudulent.
Eyewitnesses said some protesters were beaten as riot
police swarmed on a
group trying to join the demonstration. Police were not
immediately
available for comment.
Zimbabwe introduced tough new
security laws this year banning public
protests and gatherings without police
approval. Penalties range from fines
to a year in prison.
A
further 19 people, including a senior NCA official, were arrested in
similar
protests around the country.
"In Mutare, seven people were arrested,
and 11 in Bulawayo," the official
said.
The NCA, a coalition of
student and church groups, political parties and
human rights organisations,
wants a new constitution to replace laws critics
say entrench Mugabe's
rule.
They say deeply rooted flaws in the current constitution make
it impossible
to hold free and fair elections in Zimbabwe, including the
March 9-11
election and, after Mugabe's victory, vowed to continue protests
until the
constitution was changed.
The protests came two days
after some 350 female NCA members were arrested
for holding an unauthorised
meeting.
The women began arriving at Harare magistrate's court on
Saturday after the
High Court ruled they must be brought before the courts by
2 p.m. (1200 GMT)
or be released.
Mugabe has amended the
constitution 16 times since assuming power at
independence from Britain in
1980, in what are seen as attempts to tighten
his grip on
power.
On Friday, he ruled out rerunning the election, as demanded by
MDC leader
Morgan Tsvangirai, and warned he would not brook any challenge to
his
authority.
Nigerian and South African envoys met Mugabe's
ruling ZANU-PF party and the
MDC last week to map out an agenda for talks
between the two rivals.
But Tsvangirai, who calls Mugabe's victory
daylight robbery, has said he
will discuss nothing but fresh
elections.
The Commonwealth suspended Zimbabwe for a year on March 19
after its
election observers accused Mugabe of electoral
fraud.
The government dismisses the fraud accusations, saying they
are being pushed
by Western powers who want to see Mugabe ousted because he
is seizing
white-owned farms for landless blacks.
Zimbabwe is
reeling from its worst economic and political crisis since
independence in
1980, blamed on the land seizure and Mugabe's economic
policies. Analysts
warn more protests could be on the cards if he fails to
revive the
economy.
Article copied from Mirror Independent Newspaper in Masvingo, 5 April
2002.
MAHOFA BOUNCES BACK WITH THREATS
Ngundu: - Shuvai Mahofa, the Deputy Minister for Youth,
Gender, Employment Creation and Development, and Gutu South MO, has threatened
MDC supporters with retribution if they continue to support the opposition
party. Mahofa made the remarks at a victory to celebrate the re-election of
President Robert Mugabe, which was co-ordinated by the Cross Border Traders
Association at the Ngundu Halt Business Centre over the weekend.
NO T-SHIRTS/NO MAIZE
"Our youths should be on the lookout for people who support MDC
and you should be reminded from now onwards in Ngundu that no MDC T-shirt should
be worn publicly," warned Mahofa.
She said any person who supported MDC should be beaten
thoroughly and deprived of maize.
"BEAT THEM THOROUGHLY!"
"Zanu PF will not continue to sell maize to MDC supporters
because they oppose us. They gave us a torrid time during the election and
anyone who continues to support MDC should be beaten," said Mahofa.
Mahofa left her audience shell-shocked when she started to use
obscene language to demonise the MDC.
THREAT TO CHIEFS
She threatened chiefs who support the MDC that their
chieftainship would be revoked because the government would not tolerate such
insubordination.
"We want to warn chiefs that we will not tolerate you if you
are aligned to the MDC," she said.
DEATH WRANGLE
Mahofa was recently involved in a bitter wrangle over the death
of war veteran Amos Museva. The relatives and friends of Museva dumped the body
at Mahofa’s homestead, demanding $2million and 40 head of cattle, or
$4million.
Museva died after he was attacked over a farmhouse dispute with
Mahofa’s daughter. The war vet’s body was buried only three weeks later,
following the intervention of Mahofa’ relative, Vice President Simon
Muzenda.
CIVIL SERVANTS THREATENED
Mahofa also reiterated at the victory celebration that civil
servants who supported opposition parties would be fired.
People at Ngundu were still shocked after the rally about the
statements made by Mahofa. " A senior, mature politician like Mahofa should not
be seen to be promoting retribution. It was an irresponsible and derogatory
speech," said a resident who refused to be named in case of victimisation.
Killa Zivhu, the general director of the Cross Border Traders
Association, said since Zanu PF had won the elections, its members should start
fulfilling their promises.
Starting next week, Government will be distributing $150million
countrywide to help Cross Border Traders Association (an arm of Zanu PF).
CBTA held 120 rallies around the country to campaign for
Mugabe, the Zanu PF candidate. - ZC
No support from the ANC for MDC ........... and no mention of Nelson Mandela who has demounced Mugabe's policies........
SPEECH BY DUMISANI MAKHAYE, ANC NEC MEMBER, OPENING THE ANC
CONFERENCE OF THE MPUMALANGA PROVINCE
Issued by African National Congress - KwaZulu Natal
23 March 2002
Viva President Thabo Mbeki, Viva!
Viva ANC, Viva!
Viva SACP,
Viva!
Viva Cosatu, Viva!
Viva Sanco, Viva!
Viva ANC Women's League,
Viva!
Viva ANC Youth League, Viva!
The Chairperson,
Members of the ANC National Executive
Committee;
Representatives of the South African Communist
Party;
Representatives of the Congress of South African Trade
Unions;
Representatives of Sanco;
Members of the ANC Women's
League;
The Young Lions;
Former Commanders, Commissars, Men and Women of
our People's Army, Umkhonto We Sizwe;
Comrade Veterans;
Minister of Land
and Agricultural Affairs, Minister Thoko Msane Didiza,
The Premier, N. J.
Mahlangu,
MECs, Members of the Legislature, Members of the National Assembly
and Councillors.
Dear Delegates.
The eyes of the nation are focused on this Provincial Conference. Comrade
President Thabo Mbeki, the ANC National Executive Committee, the entire
membership and supporters of our revolutionary organisation, the ANC, expect
only one result from this Conference - maximum unity of purpose and a
hundred-fold increase in the combative capacity of our organisation. We cannot
but ensure that we come out of this Conference more united and more combat ready
than ever before.
Our enemies wish us the very opposite. They have spent sleepless nights
plotting our undoing. They hope that we will come out of this Conference divided
into thousand splinter groups and at each others' throats. They hope we will
come out of this Conference having renounced our very being - a being of being
revolutionaries. But they shall fail because Oliver Oliver Tambo, Chief Albert
Luthuli, Gert Ntsibande, J.B. Marks, Moses Kotane, Moses Mabhida, Alfred Nzo,
Joe Modise, Lilian Ngoyi, Florence Mposho, Dorothy Nyembe, Chris Hani, Joe
Gqabi, Cassius Maake and Comrade Mashego Morodi taught us to be revolutionaries,
to defend the unity of the ANC even with our own lives. We cannot but follow the
instructions of these great men and women.
The Mpumalanga province has always occupied a strategic point in our
struggle. It was from this province, in Bethal, that the Lion of the East, Gert
Ntsibande, roared in the 1950s. It was through this province that the Luthuli
highway of soldiers of Umkhonto We Sizwe to the then Transvaal and Natal passed.
It is in this province where the mortal remains of most of our fallen soldiers
lie strewn in unmarked graves. Mpumalanga is a frontline province both literally
and figuratively.
The enemies of freedom, having recognised the strategic importance of this
province, practised and perfected their strategy to weaken and frustrate our
revolutionary advance in this province and throughout the country. Mpumalanga
became a testing ground for all counter-revolutionary strategies and tactics.
Having achieved a strategic victory in 1994, nevertheless the enemy did not
accept its defeat lying down. Now and again it carries out counter-offensive
attacks against us using the counter-revolutionary network it has built over
decades, especially in this frontline province. It is still able to sow the
seeds of despair, mistrust and suspicion. We are fighting an enemy that fights
back. When it scores victories it usually does so out of its own strength and
not because of our weaknesses.
But on the whole, the enemy is on a retreat. We must cut out its retreating
routes and turn its retreat into a complete rout. To the battle, Comrades!
We can only be equal to our tasks if we close our ranks as never before.
Unity in action means the very survival of the ANC and our revolution. We shall
not allow any space for rumour-mongerers; people who sneek in the death of the
night to character assassinate our leadership; populists and careerists who feed
on the basest instincts among our people such as tribalism, regionalism,
backwardness and ignorance. We shall seek and isolate those who ride on the wave
of cheap populism.
Dear Comrade Delegates,
The National Executive Committee has full confidence in you. Over years the
National Executive Committee has sought to strengthen the ANC leadership in this
province through various interventions. Senior comrades have been deployed in
this province. A series of meetings have been held to try and resolve problems
among comrades. Strategic changes have been made in our caucuses. Comrades from
the National assembly have been deployed into the province and vice versa.
Intense political work is being carried out in our structures. Vital time, money
and personnel have been deployed into the province.
As a result of all these efforts, the ANC remains the premier organisation in
all spheres of life in the province. In the 1999 general elections, the voters
returned us even with a greater majority. The prophets of doom and gloom were
confounded. We are in full control of the three District Councils.
There were those among us who having thought that they were more popular than
the ANC, stood as independent councillors. They behaved like a donkey that
carried Jesus Christ to Jerusalem and mistook the popularity of Jesus Christ for
its own. It was surprised when it came the second time to Jerusalem without
Jesus Christ and was stoned by the very crowds that had cheered Jesus Christ.
These independent councillors had decided to be independent of the people and of
the ANC and met the wrath of our people. All the wards they contested were won
by the ANC candidates.
The revolutionary culture of the ANC is finding its way back into our ranks.
Ideological coherence is taking shape. We have approached the re-alignment
process not simply as a technical process but it has been informed and
superceded by our all-round political and ideological work. We shall continue
along this path as we negotiate all the obstacles lying ahead of us. It does not
mean that the leadership you elected was faultless.
The intervention of the national leadership was not aimed at destroying any
member of the ANC. Yet it was aimed at defending the best interests of the ANC,
our people and our revolution.
Comrade Delegates,
You will note that the intervention of the NEC did not lead to the
disbandment of elected structures in the province as it was the case in the Free
State, Gauteng and the Limpopo provinces. This is not an indication that there
were lesser problems in your province than in the other three provinces. But it
is an indication that the NEC has full confidence, that you dear comrades, have
got the capacity to keep the movement intact; to keep the movement moving
forward. You dare not fail President Thabo Mbeki. You dare not fail the national
leadership. You dare not fail our people. You dare not fail our revolution.
It does mean that we must continue to exercise maximum vigilance against
those who may still be lurking in the dark ready to cut the jugular vein of our
organisation by engaging in lies, slander, spreading of rumours, misinformation
and disinformation about genuine comrades and leadership. Our document, Through
the eyes of a needle says; "Some will try to subvert the ANC from within.
Because they know they cannot defeat the ANC frontally, they will try to create
an ANC that serves their interests."
Of course, we must also be careful of those who will create the atmosphere of
paranoia to stifle open and constructive debate in our structures. We believe in
democratic centralism. We believe in centralism which is democratically
centralised.
Dear Comrade Delegates,
Part of the tasks you are going to performance during this Conference is to
elect a leadership core that will lead us in the battles that lie ahead. In our
document, Through the eye of a needle, we describe the broad requirements of the
leadership as follows:
1. "As a revolutionary organisation, the ANC needs revolutionary cadres and
leaders. It should put in place leadership collectives that satisfy the
character of the ANC as a revolutionary democratic movement, a non-racial and
non-sexist revolutionary movement, a broad national democratic movement, a mass
movement and a leader of the democratic forces.
2. An ANC leader should understand ANC policy and be able to apply it under
all conditions in which she finds herself. This includes an appreciation, from
the NDR standpoint, of the country and the world we live in, of the balance of
forces, and of how continually to change this balance in favour of the motive
forces of change.
3. A leader should constantly seek to improve his capacity to serve the
people; he should strive to be in touch with the people all the time, listen to
their views and learn from them. He should be accessible and flexible; and not
arrogate to himself the status of being the source of all wisdom.
4. A leader should win the confidence of the people in her day-to-day work.
Where the situation demands, she should be firm; and have the courage to explain
and seek to convince others of the correctness of decisions taken by
constitutional structures even if such decisions are unpopular. She should not
seek to gain cheap popularity by avoiding difficult issues, making false
promises or merely pandering to popular sentiments.
5. A leader should lead by example. He should be above reproach in his
political and social conduct - as defined by our revolutionary morality. Through
force of example, he should act as a role model to ANC members and non-members
alike. Leading a life that reflects commitment to the strategic goals of the NDR
includes not only being free of corrupt practices; it also means actively
fighting against corruption.
6. There are no ready-made leaders. Leaders evolve out of battles for social
transformation. In these battles, cadres will stumble and some will fall. But
the abiding quality of leadership is to learn from mistakes, to appreciate one
weaknesses and correct them.
7. A leader should seek to influence and be influenced by others in the
collective. He should have the conviction to state his views boldly and openly
within constitutional structures of the movement; and - without being
disrespectful - not to cower before those in more senior positions in pursuit of
patronage, not to rely on cliques to maintain one's position.
8. An individual with qualities of leadership does not seek to gain
popularity by undermining those in position of responsibility. Where such a
member has a view on how to improve things or correct mistakes, she should state
those views in constitutional structures and seek to win others to her own
thinking. She should assist the movement as a whole to improve its work, and not
stand aside to claim perfection out of inactivity.
9. The struggle for social transformation is a complex undertaking in which
at times, personal interests will conflict the organisational interest. From
time to time, conflict will manifest itself between and among members and
leaders. The ultimate test of leadership includes:-
9.1 striving for convergence between personal interests - material, status
and otherwise - and the collective interest.
9.2 handling conflict in the course of ANC work by understanding its true
origins and seeking to resolve it in the context of struggle and in the interest
of the ANC.
9.3 The ability to inspire people in good times and bad; to reinforce
members' and society's confidence in the ANC and transformation; and
9.4 Winning genuine acceptance by the membership, not through suppression,
threats or patronage, but by being principled, firm, humble and considerate."
In selecting leadership core we should also take into account the nine
strategic tasks we identified at the ANC National General Council in Port
Elizabeth. These are:-
1. The progressive replacement of the apartheid state by a democratic state.
2. The commitment of the democratic state to reconstruction and development.
3. A better life for all.
4. The mobilisation of the masses of the people to govern themselves in the
context of the objective "the people shall govern".
5. Social partnership for development and transformation.
6. Economic transformation.
7. The progress of the region of souther Africa.
8. The African Renaissance.
9. The unity of the poor of the world, for peace, democracy and democracy -
South/South cooperation.
Dear Comrade Delegates,
We have dealt in greater detail about the selection of the leadership core
for obvious reasons. We know there has been a lot of canvassing for all the
candidates. Lists have been drawn up. Constitutional structures have given you
certain mandates. I am not encouraging you to forget about those mandates. But
the ANC is not a federal organisation. Candidates to this conference can
influence and be influenced by others. When you go to the ballot box, while
taking into account the mandate from your constitutional structure, you are not
forced to follow the list. Make your cross in the best interest of the ANC
according to the requirements of leadership and the strategic tasks facing the
ANC.
The fate of the ANC in this province is in your hands. That is why we must
pay special attention to the credentials. Delegates that are here should be
delegates mandated by constitutional structures of the movement, especially ANC
branches.
Dear Comrades,
We are meeting here when the Western powers are geared towards rolling back
the frontiers of liberation in southern Africa. They want to impose presidents
of their choice in our region. Zimbabwe is only a strategic hill. The objective
is South Africa. The gross interference into the internal affairs of Zimbabwe by
Western powers is a dress rehearsal for South Africa. Their strategy is to
weaken as much as it is possible governments and parties of the former national
liberation movement in southern Africa.
Literally thousands of people in SA were massacred through apartheid state
sponsored political violence between 1990 and 1994. Two months before the 1994
general elections, more than a thousand people were killed and yet the elections
were deemed substantially free and fair. Of course, those thousands of people
who were killed were all Africans. It did not matter to the Western powers.
The difference in Zimbabwe is that even though there were far fewer deaths
during the build up to the Presidential election, about eight of those who died
were whites.
We condemn an attitude that says elections shall be deemed free and fair only
if the result accords to the interests of Western powers. The Western powers
must not be allowed to impose Morgan "Six pence" Tsvangiraison on the people of
Zimbabwe.
Unity within our ranks, unity within the Tripartite Alliance and all the
progressive forces in South Africa, southern Africa, Africa and the world is a
cornerstone upon which we will defend and expand our revolutionary gains. To the
Battle Comrades!
Amandla!!!
Viva ANC, Viva!
Viva President Thabo Mbeki,
Viva!
Wathinta, Abafazi!
Contact number: 082 8081984.
The Times - Letter
April 06, 2002
Zimbabwe reaction
From Mr
Andrew Hall
Sir, Sue Shaw (letter, March 27) says that the West
reacted to the crisis in
Zimbabwe only when white farmers were attacked. This
is not so. Attacks on
opponents of Mugabe of all races have been going on for
well over two years
and the West has been stepping up diplomatic pressure
throughout, showing
that no one wants to see a Rwanda, or the 1980s genocide
of the Matabele in
Zimbabwe, occur again.
Brent van der Linde (letter,
same day) is appalled at the way the Western
press portrays President Mbeki
but the South African leader is very
supportive of Mugabe. If Mbeki, in his
position as leader of a regional
power, had any sense of responsibility he
would have followed Nelson
Mandela, who urged the people of Zimbabwe to
remove Mugabe (report, The
Sunday Times, May 7, 2000). An opportunity is
being missed to demonstrate
that responsible African governments have had
enough of barbarism,
corruption and nepotism. It is not too late and Mbeki
could still come out
as a statesman of the stature of
Mandela.
Zimbabwe is the land of my birth and upbringing from which I am
sadly
parted. I and my fellow countrymen have demonstrated frequently in
London
against Mugabe with a wonderful sense of unity. To label us as black
or
white is divisive.
Yours faithfully,
ANDREW HALL,
17 Gillam
Street, Worcester WR3 8JT.
March 28.
The Australian
Zimbabwe crowds protest govt
April 06,
2002
HUNDREDS of Zimbabweans defied a police ban to demonstrated
against
President Robert Mugabe's government, but police broke up the crowds
and
prevented the protests from gathering force.
The chairman of the
National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), Lovemore
Madhuku, was arrested
shortly after the protests ended, along with 10 others
in Harare, the group's
spokesman said.
Two members of the NCA national task force were also
arrested in the central
town of Gweru, Douglas Mwonzora said.
Police
and Home Affairs Minister John Nkomo had said during the week that
the
protests were illegal and warned Zimbabweans not to participate.
The NCA
had planned for the protests to unfold simultaneously in five cities
around
Zimbabwe, but riot police patrolling the cities prevented any large
groups
from gathering.
In Harare, police found the NCA's two unannounced back-up
locations and kept
riot police armed with teargas and batons patrolling those
areas, Madhuku
said before his arrest.
"They were at our two
unadvertised sites very early this morning, so our
people were still running
in town" and unable to gather, Madhuku said.
Police broke up the groups,
one of which had grown to about 300 people, and
throughout the morning,
several small groups of protesters played
cat-and-mouse with riot squads
roving the city.
"This is just the beginning of larger protests," one
protester said after
running from the police.
The NCA has announced
plans for a regular series of demonstrations aimed at
forcing the government
to accept a more democratic constitution, which the
group says would prevent
the abuses that aided Mugabe's re-election in the
March 9-11 presidential
poll.
The next protest is set for Independence Day, on April
18.
The current constitution, negotiated with Britain at independence in
1980,
gives Mugabe broad executive powers, which he used to change electoral
rules
up to the day before voting began.
NCA has declared Mugabe's
election victory illegitimate, as have the
opposition Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC) and other independent
observers here.
Among key clauses
in the NCA's new constitution is the separation of powers
between a
non-executive president, elected by parliament and an executive
prime
minister, elected by the people.
The death penalty would be retained for
murder but not for treason.
Abortion - currently illegal - would be allowed
in some cases.
About 100 people joined in the protest in Zimbabwe's
second city of
Bulawayo, but they were quickly dispersed by
police.
NCA officials said several people were injured, but police
declined to
provide details on arrests or injuries.
Meanwhile, 378
women arrested at an NCA workshop in Harare's working-class
suburb of Warren
Park on Wednesday went to court today, Mwonzora said.
They were charged
under the security law with holding an illegal gathering,
but prosecutors
agreed to grant them bail of 1,000 Zimbabwean dollars
($A34.03) each,
Mwonzora said.
BBC
Saturday, 6 April, 2002, 00:06 GMT 01:06 UK
Zimbabwe warns protesters
The activists have vowed to continue their
protest
The authorities in Zimbabwe have warned people not to take
part in anti-government protests planned for this weekend in the capital,
Harare, and elsewhere in the country.
The national poll will be held six years hence and let this
sink in to Britain and... MDC (Movement for Democratic Change) 
|
|
President Robert Mugabe |
Home Affairs Minister, John Nkomo, said the marches were
illegal, and warned the opposition that those who took part would be prosecuted.
But the civil rights organisation the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA),
who organised the protests, has vowed to go ahead despite the detention this
week of hundreds of their supporters, many of them women and children.
Earlier President Robert Mugabe ruled out another election, warning that he
would not accept any challenges to his authority.
"The national poll will be held six years hence and let this sink in to
Britain and... MDC (Movement for Democratic Change)," he said in a speech to his
ruling Zanu-PF party.
Protests
A coalition of churches, trade unions and students groups had called for
massive street protests following President Robert Mugabe's controversial
re-election last month.
The NCA says Mugabe has too many
powers
|
The police have declared the protests illegal and 354 activists have been
arrested and held for 24 hours, said Lovemore Madhuku, one of the protest's
organisers.
The arrests come as mediators from South Africa and Nigeria are in Zimbabwe,
trying to reconcile Mr Mugabe's government with the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change.
They hope to cool the political temperature, possibly with the aim of setting
up a government of national unity.
The NCA is an umbrella group set up to campaign for a new constitution - in
particular a curb on the powers of the president.
"It is totally repressive. The police ban on our planned peaceful
demonstrations in unlawful and unconstitutional. We are going ahead, even if
they have to keep jailing people," said Mr Madhuku.
The MDC insists that the election was rigged and its leader, Morgan
Tsvangirai has said he is only prepared to discuss the date of a new poll, held
under international supervision, not any proposals for a government of national
unity.
Retribution
Meanwhile in the Zimbabwe countryside, the MDC says its members are still
being victimised by triumphant Zanu-PF supporters.
Tsvangirai will only discuss Mugabe's
departure
|
The claim is backed by the Commercial Farmers' Union - the voice of
Zimbabwe's white landowners - which has been reporting an increased level of
farm invasions, looting and harassment of its members.
It says a large proportion of the incidents seem to have been retribution
against farmers who supported Mr Tsvangirai.
The War Veterans Association, which led the farm invasions, has now issued an
ultimatum to all farmers whose land has been designated for resettlement to pack
up and leave.
It says they are using their farms to organise against the government, and
make negative publicity against Zimbabwe.
From SABC News, 5
April
Mugabe fares worst in African
survey
Zimbabweans were fed up with President Robert Mugabe and his
government 18 months before his re-election last month, African researchers said
today. Zimbabweans were the least satisfied and least trustful of their
government of 12 nations in emerging African democracies, Gyimah Boadi, of the
Ghana Centre for Democratic Development, told a news conference in Cape Town.
Masipula Sithole, a Zimbabwean academic, said the research vindicated those
governments that rejected the outcome of last month's presidential election,
which was marred by violence and intimidation. Presenting the results of a
comparative study of public attitudes to government in 12 African countries,
Boadi and other researchers in the pan-African study said Zimbabweans were the
least satisfied on almost every standard measured by the Afrobarometer Network
in a 27-month study.
The Afrobarometer project polled between 1 200 and 2 400 people
in each of 12 African countries that had implemented some measure of political
and economic reform, to test their perceptions of government, their concerns and
expectations. Mugabe earned the lowest personal score with only 20% saying they
trusted him to any degree at all. Only 3% said they were at all satisfied with
his economic management. The next lowest score, 38% trust, went to
then-president Frederick Chiluba of Zambia, who chose not to stand for an
unconstitutional third term last year. The survey, which will be repeated over
the next 12 months, showed that Africans put freedom, civil liberties and
delivery ahead of elections and multi-party competition in their definition of
democracy. The surveys were conducted in Botswana, Ghana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mali,
Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Shots were fired today at the home of the white owner of a wildlife reserve
which has been occupied by around 50 veterans from Zimbabwe's war of
independence, a spokeswoman for the Commercial Farmers' Union (CFU) said.
The problems began yesterday with war veterans threatening the owner and
demanding that he leave the farm, following a dispute over the death of a
rhinoceros at the reserve, CFU spokeswoman Jenni Williams told AFP.
The CFU groups mainly white farmers, who control a large part of Zimbabwe's
prime farmland.
The war veterans, who have occupied the reserve at Inyati, in Matabeleland
North province in southwestern Zimbabwe, for several months, had demanded the
owner, Richard Pascal, pay them compensation for the rhinoceros's death.
The dispute appeared to have been settled yesterday evening. But when Pascal
came out of his house this morning, he was threatened by an axe-wielding war
veteran. When he tried to go back into his house, shots were fired at him.
The shooting continued even after Pascal had re-entered his house, according
to Williams, who was unable to say if anyone had been injured in the
incident.
The CFU spokeswoman did say, however, that "one person has been
abducted".
A police unit has been called to the reserve and was expected to arrive there
sometime on Saturday morning, Williams said.
Invasions by war veterans of land owned by Zimbabwe's white minority began
more than two years ago when President Robert Mugabe stepped up a controversial
land reform programme aimed at correcting imbalances in ownership that date from
the colonial era.
The invasions - often mired in violence and carried out with the backing of
Mugabe's government - usually target land owned by white commercial farmers who
make up just one per cent of the population but own around 30 per cent of the
country's prime farmland.
Under the controversial land reforms, Zimbabwe has listed for acquisition 95
per cent of all land owned by some 4,500 white commercial farmers in Zimbabwe,
according to the CFU.