From The Mail & Guardian, 10 June 2000

ZIM TO USE FRAUD-FRIENDLY BALLOT BOXES

ZIMBABWE will use traditional wooden ballot boxes in parliamentary elections on June 24-25 because they are still credible and readily available, Registrar General Tobaiwa Mudede said on Saturday. He said the use of transparent ballot boxes used in other countries to guard against fraud would be a burden to taxpayers. "Our wooden ballot box is quite credible and there is nothing wrong with it," he said. "We don't want to spend money unnecessarily ... boxes do not bring change to the election results. "We have abundant forests in the eastern highlands," he said. "We should be proud of our product. We can make the ballot boxes ourselves."

Mudede said he had asked some international election observers here what changes the use of transparent boxes had brought to other elections. "Most of them said nothing changed and that it was a sheer waste of resources," he said. In Zimbabwe, the wooden ballot boxes are opened to check if they are empty before voting starts. This is done in the presence of representatives of various political parties. After voting ends on a particular day, the box is sealed and party representatives guard the boxes overnight. The following day, the boxes are opened in the presence of all parties.

From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 10 June 2000

Zim teetering on the brink of bankruptcy

HUGH NEVILL

Harare - ZIMBABWE is hurtling toward bankruptcy in the violent run-up to parliamentary elections as the government prepares to seize white-owned farms without payment. President Robert Mugabe - blaming "cartels" for Zimbabwe's problems - told a campaign rally on Friday that the government will reintroduce price controls soon. But economists say such controls will only exacerbate the underlying problems and are predicting that the government will have to raise taxes and slash spending after the June 24-25 elections.

Foreign exchange is critically short, donors have cut off aid, and investors are staying away. Ordinary people are hurting, with the price of vegetables up by about 200% recently and inflation running at some 60% and rising by the day. Unemployment is estimated at around 50 to 60% of the workforce, and growing. Farmers are holding back their crops because the government has pegged the Zimbabwean dollar at 38 to the US dollar - the parallel rate is 55 to the dollar - and businesses are laying off staff and cutting back production because of the scarcity of fuel and because they cannot obtain the foreign exchange they need for equipment. Petrol was delivered to service stations Friday after a long drought that saw motorists queuing for hours and many pumps dry, but the Ziana news agency reported Saturday that people were cutting down trees in Harare for firewood because of the shortage of paraffin.

Zimbabwe imports electricity from Angola, South Africa, Mozambique, Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia, and the state utility is starting to ration power, saying it does not have access to the foreign exchange it needs, with a resulting shortfall of 10 to 25% of power at peak times. It owes US$20 million to South Africa alone. Loans cost around 60%, but few are approved because banks calculate that most businesses and farmers have little prospect of repaying them. The crunch is hitting all sectors: the National Blood Transfusion Services reported Saturday that they were struggling to pay their debts to foreign suppliers because hospitals were not paying for the blood, and a potato crisp factory has been idle for the past three weeks as a result of the shortage of paraffin and foreign exchange.

Squatters led by veterans of Zimbabwe's war of independence from Britain who have occupied some 1 500 white-owned farms burnt stocks of tobacco - the country's biggest foreign exchange earner, along with gold - and wreaked havoc on some farms. Four white farmers are among around 29 people killed in political violence since February, and the government is planning to seize more than 800 white-owned farms without payment and distribute them to landless blacks. That number will grow, Mugabe is telling his supporters.

The Commercial Farmers Union says the white farmers have lost four billion Zimbabwe dollars (more than US$100 million at the official exchange rate) since the farm occupations started. Business leaders warned Thursday that gold mines would be forced to close if economic hardships continued to place a stranglehold on foreign currency inflows. Doug Verden, a senior executive in the Zimbabwe Chamber of Mines said that production of gold was down by a tonne compared to this time last year.

The Standard Chartered Bank is warning that the economy will shrink by at least five percent this year. "Zimbabwe's economic outlook has deteriorated dramatically in the last six weeks," the bank said in its May economic review. The rate of economic decline will accelerate after the elections "unless there is a radical change in policy, not just in regard to land, but also in macroeconomic management," said the British-based bank, which has branches throughout Zimbabwe. "It is now clear that lasting - as distinct from temporary - damage has been inflicted on commercial agriculture," it said. The bank noted that net capital flows into Zimbabwe tumbled from US$319 million in 1997 to just 16 million last year, and that the Reserve Bank was warning that this year there would be a net outflow of more than US$200 million, which "may turn out to be an optimistic assessment."

It said economic indicators showed the budget deficit was currently running at an "unsustainable" rate of some 20 percent of gross domestic product.

From The Zimbabwe Standard, 11 June 2000

Zanu PF refuses to disclose accounts

Staff Writer

ZANU PF members last week objected to the reading of their party’s financial report by the party’s finance secretary, Emmerson Mnangagwa, in the presence of the media. The report outlines how Zanu PF used the funds allocated to it by the treasury under the controversial Political Parties (Finance) Act.

The meeting was a special caucus for Zanu PF parliamentary candidates held in Harare. It was addressed by President Robert Mugabe. Mnangagwa was about to read the full outline of the report when the minister of state for national security, Sydney Sekeramayi, informed him of the presence of members of the local and international press. "I am informed that there are some journalists present in here and I will present the report in their absence, in the afternoon, since it is an internal matter," said Mnangagwa.

Under the Act, treasury is obliged to release money to a political party which has at least 15 seats in parliament. Zanu PF received $76 million in the last budget and has channelled the money towards its electoral campaign programme. According to sources, controversy surrounds the money, with some Zanu PF candidates alleging that the money was being misappropriated. There are reports that the party had exhausted the money and is now seeking more funds for the campaign.

Speaking at the same meeting, vice-president Simon Muzenda voiced his concerns about the money, saying it should be used for its intended purpose. "Let us use the money for the election and it must not be diverted for any other purpose."

The Standard understands that war veterans were given at least $20 million to finance the current farm invasions and the subsequent reign of terror meant to cow the opposition into submission. Another tranche was disbursed to 10 Zanu PF provinces countrywide through their provincial chairmen.

From The Zimbabwe Standard, 11 June 2000

Poll results could be challenged

Margaret Chinowaita

THE outcome of this month’s historic parliamentary elections could be legally challenged on the basis that the Electoral Supervisory Commission (ESC) was not adequately involved in the electoral process, legal experts told The Standard yesterday.

According to the ESC itself, it had failed to exercise two of its three constitutional functions namely; to supervise the registration of voters and to consider any proposed election legislation that has been referred to it. The third function of the body is to supervise the conduct of general elections and by-elections.

Speaking to The Standard yesterday, a consultant with the ESC, Rejoice Ngwenya, confirmed that the ESC had not taken part in the supervision of the registration of voters and that it had also not been consulted in matters of the modification of the Electoral Act. The modifications, gazetted on Friday, allow only members of a disciplined force and those absent from the country on government service, as well as their spouses, to vote through the postal ballot system. Said Ngwenya: "The ESC was not consulted when the Electoral Act was modified. We were only given the draft document on Tuesday while it was gazetted on Friday. The ESC’s role was undermined."

Ngwenya said by virtue of the constitution, the registrar-general was meant to make routine reports to the ESC, to update it on how his office was conducting the registration of voters in order to enable the supervision of the exercise. On whether it would be possible to monitor the postal ballot system, Ngwenya said: "The postal voters are a little bit tricky to monitor, the question that will be raised by citizens is whether we can trust Mudede with postal voters."

Kevin Laue, a senior Harare attorney and human rights lawyer who also chairs the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, said the sidelining of the ESC was unhealthy for the country’s electoral process. "It’s unhealthy, it makes the elections messy. It could give people an argument to challenge the aspects of the election outcome." Professor Welshman Ncube, who is a lawyer by profession, and is also the secretary-general of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), said the ESC’s role was not being taken seriously by the government. He said inadequate resources and the fact that the commission was operating without the full compliment of workers, was evidence of that. The ESC is currently operating with three members, instead of the five required by the constitution. Said Ncube: "If someone is able to testify that there were 10 000 people who registered for elections but failed to appear on the voters roll on election day, then one can argue that this was so because the elections were not supervised by the ESC."

Recent press reports revealed that thousands of people who had registered to vote were missing from the voters roll. David Coltart, a lawyer and secretary for legal affairs within the MDC, said given the scale of the abuse of law in the country, the aspect of the ESC was apparently insignificant. Coltart said this was not the first time that the ESC had been unable to do its work. The ESC refused to monitor last year’s local government elections because it was not offered adequate information and resources to carry out its duties.

Comment from The Zimbabwe Standard, 11 June 2000

Letter from America - Africa ready for recolonisation!

Ken Mufuka

BETWEEN 1966 and 1968 I was a student at the University of Rhodesia. The whole world was opening up to us; we surveyed it and we saw that life could be good. I remember sitting on the green lawn of Manfred Hodson Hall, sharing jokes with Stanley Mudenge, A Sakupwanya, J Jokonya and many other bright lights of the emerging Africa. Africa, was at last, thank God, freeing itself from colonial shackles. Even though Ian Smith said white rule would last for a thousand years, we all knew it was a joke. Or was it a joke? That is the subject of this letter.

Colonialism is returning, and most Africans now look back to those days with some fond memories. The lawlessness in Somalia, Sierra Leone and Liberia show that the British (in Sierra Leone at least) are being asked to take over and to remain as "masters and saviours" from the rule of thieves and gangsters who call themselves nationalists.

Sir Siaka Stevens’ first nationalist government - 1968 to 1985 – was a one party state and the majority of Sierra Leoneans remember and "allege" that it was a "government of vultures". Another phrase used is that it was "a government of locusts." A country blessed by washed down diamonds in its riverbeds, its living standard once rose to nearly U$5 000 per capita. But that was before the vultures perfected their methods. Vultures eat everything in sight. They do not "grow" anything (use the word invest), rather than "prune" (use the phrase encourage capital growth) they cut down the branch, sometimes even dig up the root as well if they can get their vulture filthy talons on them. Whether they are vultures or locusts, the result is the same. Nothing viable is left after they have been through. Add to that a one party state, there is no lawful way in which these vultures can be encouraged to relinquish power.

The significance of these vulture governments is the widespread corruption of the organs of state. The military was allowed to use their equipment to mine (unlawfully) and sell diamonds. The police were on the take, and this can be juicy, even the Holy Fathers looked the other way. The whole fabric of society was undermined. The whole elite structures were compromised, including the newspapers. That explains the emergence of vicious bandit warlord Foday Sankoh.

Nelson Mandela of South Africa has said that a government creates its own opposition. A trustful and generous government is likely to have a trusting and loyal opposition. A vulture government is likely to create a thoroughly wicked vulture opposition. Sankoh’s men chopped off the limbs of those who supported government and perhaps in vulture logic they deserved such treatment. Likewise, when Sankoh was captured, he was stripped of his clothes and paraded through Free Town streets. He was saved and taken to a British hideout.

The warlords parcelled Sierra Leone into "no go areas" usually around diamond claims. A form of evil equilibrium was reached. One vulture warlord was as strong as another. That is why the British paratroopers made mince meat of the so-called resistance in a matter of three days. That is why the Sierra Leoneans have begged the British government to keep its troops there as a protection against vulture governments. Teachers and civil servants went without pay even during Siaka Stevens’ locust period. But colonialism has already seeped back into Sierra Leone.

Here are the facts. As we speak, Britain has advisors in all levels of Sierra Leone government. These are called backroom boys. The blacks you see at the front desk don’t make the final decisions. It is the British who make sure that the soldiers are paid on time now run the military. The accountant-general in the country is a Briton on secondment; the revenue officers are British; the customs officials are British. The "vulture chefs" used to walk through customs offices without paying what they owed. Every Sierra Leonean had a friend or relative at the customs office and knew how to wait until his relative was on duty. The same vultures do not play those games with the British now. The inspector-general of the police is British - Keith Biddle, formerly assistant chief constable of Greater Manchester and Kent.

It is not for me to say whether the Sierra Leoneans are better off with the British as "masters and saviours" (their own words). I simply report the news. They are begging the British to stay for good. The events in Zimbabwe have compromised so many groups of people. the military has been tainted, the police has looked aside while crimes were committed, the wrong doers daily give interviews to the BBC and the New York Times, boasting about the number of beatings and burnings they have committed on behalf of the state.

The Holy Fathers, God forbid, say that: "We are really not sure who is committing the evil acts." By and large, they remain silent in the face of naked evil. I thought their job was to condemn wickedness and let the chips fall where they may. What then shall become of us?

When the dust settles down, Zimbabweans will find themselves worse off than any time they can remember. They may look back at colonialism and say, as Nigerians now say: "At least the British were equally unfair with everybody. There was no favouritism and they were efficient about their unfairness."

See you next week.

Ken Mufuka is a Zimbabwean citizen based in the US. He is a writer of conscience.