Source: Defiant Zanu PF deepen 2018 poll row – DailyNews Live
Gift Phiri 26 March 2017
HARARE – The prospects for free and fair elections in Zimbabwe next year
are remote without some concrete actions now to make that possible,
including significant international involvement, a leading think-tank has
said.
Cape Town-based NKC African Economics said it is not just the potential
for rigging that is a concern but the state of the political environment
in the months leading up to the 2018 polls – where previously
intimidation, repression and manipulation of State resources was the order
of the day.
This comes after Zimbabwean opposition parties and street protest
movements on Wednesday joined forces to demand the disbanding of the Rita
Makarau-led Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) ahead of elections next
year that the protesters claimed are set to be rigged.
But NKC noted that removing the Zec is going to prove difficult given that
the ruling Zanu PF has come to rely on systematic rigging.
“Having failed the fundamental test of impartiality and independence
required of an election management board, the Zec must forthwith be
disbanded and dismantled,” the opposition parties and protest movements
under the National Electoral Reform Agenda (Nera) said in a petition.
Some 200 protesters gathered at an open space outside the central business
district after police banned a planned street march to the electoral
commission head office, with riot police armed with truncheons and water
cannons patrolling the central business district to prevent the protest
march.
The opposition parties want biometric voter registration kits – procured
by the United Nations Development Programme – to rid the electoral roll of
phantom voters, fair media access to all political parties, and the
deployment of international observers to monitor the polls.
“This country cannot be a country that every time we go for an election it
is contested and there is dispute,” MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai told the
protesters before representatives handed over the petition to the
electoral commission.
Tsvangirai received cross-party support for leading an anti-President
Robert Mugabe coalition at Wednesday’s gathering.
But Zanu PF secretary for legal affairs Patrick Chinamasa said: “It is
government’s responsibility to fund the electoral process. It is Zec’s
constitutional obligation to conduct or run the presidential,
parliamentary and local authority elections and it must do so without
interference from any quarter.
“It would be a shame on Zimbabweans to feel that foreign governments or
organisations have a role to play in the funding or conduct of our
elections. Such notions are a denial of the principles of independence and
sovereignty.”
Opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) president Tendai Biti called on
all opponents of Mugabe to join forces and forge a coalition to fight his
Zanu PF party in next year’s elections.
“We are demanding fundamental electoral reforms,” Biti said.
NKC – a subsidiary of UK-based economic advisory firm Oxford Economics
said – it was extremely unlikely that the Zanu PF regime will accede to
the opposition demands and “we do not see any significant pressure from
African institutions such as the African Union or the Southern African
Development Community to pressurise Mugabe to comply and run a free and
fair election.”
“That implies that the pressure will once again come mainly from Western
nations whose concerns will simply be dismissed and disregarded as
colonial interference,” the think-tank said.
“That means the people of Zimbabwe can expect no help in dealing with a
rigged and uneven playing field in 2018.”
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