via We must demand electoral reforms – The Zimbabwean 4 February 2015 by Vince Musewe
Let me warn my readers that I am no expert on electoral or constitutional law. There are others out there who are much better than me on dealing with these issues. However, as an ordinary Zimbabwean citizen with vested interests in how we will elect our leaders in the future, I would like to share my views and invite correction and enlightenment from those who may know more.
Our vote is sacrosanct and non-negotiable. We must always remember that many laid down their lives so that we could enjoy it. But we have not paid enough attention to those laws and institutions that are designed to protect it. It is our responsibility to do so and we dare not leave it to political parties or a sitting government.
My cursory view of the new constitution and what is required by law on elections satisfies me in that we seem to have the right idea. But we need to constantly learn and improve these laws so that they become better and more inclusive. We also need to be very careful about to whom we give the responsibility to ensure that electoral law is followed without compromise, fear or favour.
We are missing the point by spending too much of our attention and energy on an electronic electoral roll and forgetting the need to fundamentally change the structural limitations with regard to the administration and validity of elections.
Every system is designed to give you the results that you get and in order for us to change the results we are getting, we must change the fundamental structure of the system. The new constitution tries to do just that. We must therefore force an urgent alignment of the constitution with the laws as our first port of call.
Yes an electronic electoral roll is critical and non-negotiable for transparency and credibility of the results, but we must remember this will always be the product of a system and its people.
In Zimbabwe it’s the people behind the system that we need to be wary of, given Zanu (PF)’s patronage system, which is embedded in most government institutions. We must take counter measures to ensure that never again can Zanu (PF) control outcomes and processes during elections. Our position now must clearly be that no election can ever be credible if administered by a sitting government, including the president.
With regard to the ZEC itself, as far as I understand, it remains a department in the Ministry of Justice and therefore relies on and is beholden to a partisan Minister for its resources, while its head is appointed by the President. Therein lies our fundamental problem.
ZEC must be an independently constituted body made up of citizens nominated and appointed by an independent public body or an Electoral College and not Parliament. A sitting president must never be involved in the process, but must accept whomever has been recommended by an electoral college.
I understand that currently the ZEC commissioners are nominated through Parliament. The problem here is that a majority party will always have more influence over who gets appointed onto the commission. This must change.
The ZEC must also have its own resource base and not be subject to the whims of the sitting Minister of Justice or Finance. This can be achieved by having a set formula on how funds are allocated to it so that its operations are not subject to the whims of politicians in power.
Political parties contesting an election, including registered civic bodies, must appoint or nominate a representative or who will sit on the Electoral College that has oversight over the election process. This Electoral College must be constituted well before any election and dissolved after each election. This will allow public oversight and scrutiny on the election process with adequate time to identify and correct problems.
Yes, independent observers during an election are necessary for the benefit of credibility, but that is all. They must never again be allowed to be the sole determining factor of whether elections are free and fair.
I have looked the 87-page report by the ZEC on the 2013 polls.The report acknowledges an exception with regard to it not having the full powers on the voter’s role, which remained in the hands and control of the Registrar General, a Zanu (PF) underling. For me this is a fundamental and unacceptable exception that nullifies the election.
The second exception acknowledged by the report is the use of 2008 delimited constituencies, again a critical factor that allowed the manipulation of the elections. No credible election body can brush these off and then carry on with elections as if nothing happened. The results of the 2008 elections were flawed – how can we then proceed to use 2008 as the base year?
I urge civic bodies, citizens and opposition parties to establish an Electoral College that demands particular standards with regard to the 2018 elections. This should be our condition of participating in them. We cannot leave that responsibility to the ZEC just yet.
– Vince Musewe is an economist and author based in Harare. You can contact him at vtmusewe@gmail.com
COMMENTS
I write in support of the above article’s facts on Zimbabwe’s electoral process. I am, too, no expert in the field but a concerned Zimbabwean who desires to see reflective outcomes from an election. Progressive Zimbabweans should contribute to this important observation. An independent electoral body accountable to the nation should oversee the conduct and running of an election and the body should independent from the sitting government.That body should be given the mandate to register voters,make the voter’s roll available to all contesting political parties and individuals allowed time to inspect it well before an election to allow amendments, corrections or otherwise.I urge experts to input on this subject to make 2018 election results better reflective.