Plot to Scuttle Zimbabwe Poll Flops

Justice Rita Makarau and Mrs. Joyce Kazembe of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission. The country is preparing for national harmonized elections on July 31, 2013., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

Plot to scuttle poll flops

Wednesday, 17 July 2013 00:52
Caesar Zvayi Deputy Editor
Zimbabwe Herald

THE chaos that characterised special voting which ended on Monday night has been attributed to an intricate plot by the MDC formations, working with some elements in the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, to scuttle harmonised elections due in two weeks time. The plot, however, flopped after it was unearthed and a raft of interventions to
neutralise it to ensure the harmonised elections proceed as scheduled were adopted.

Sources close to developments say after unsuccessfully pursuing all possible avenues to delay the polls, from lobbying Sadc to flooding the courts with applications, the MDC formations had turned to the African Union and wanted a failed special vote to strengthen their hand ahead of the special summit set for Friday.

MDC-T has since filed an application seeking nullification of the special vote pursuant to that objective.

The matter is set to be heard before High Court judge Justice George Chiweshe today.

MDC-T, the sources said, employed five strategies to sabotage special voting with a view to building a case against the country’s preparedness for the elections that it wants defered.

The first strategy, the source said, was at the level of some pro-MDC commissioners within ZEC who deliberately undermined the chain of command to issue conflicting reports to officers manning the special voting centres to foment confusion.

“There has been a spirited attempt to undermine the chain of command by some commissioners who are in fact sending conflicting statements to operatives on the ground.

“One person notorious for this, Geoff Feltoe, precipitated the near riotous situation at Town House after telling police officers to disregard the roll call and file en masse into the hall. Only the timely intervention of the anti-riot squad saved the situation,’’ said the source.

Anti-riot police were called in to control uniformed forces who attempted to force their way into a polling station at Town House in Harare Monday evening following day long delays in the distribution of ballot papers.

Secondly, MDC-T reportedly primed its ministers who head ministries under which Printflow and Fidelity Printers which won bids to print the ballot papers fall, and the energy and power development portfolio.

The printers inexplicably developed faults over the weekend, a development that was not timeously communicated to ZEC.

“We had two printers, Printflow under the Ministry of Finance; and Fidelity which is under the RBZ, which also falls under the Ministry of Finance, both bid for the job on the basis of their capacity.

“In the case of Fidelity they also indicated that apart from the old machine they had always relied on, they had new machinery which had already been installed.

“We were surprised that when time to print the ballots came, both units reported breakdowns, and there was no indication that the new machine was used.

“This clearly showed there was an agenda to frustrate the process. The critical questions are why was the new machinery not used? Why were we, as the customers, not informed directly?’’ the source said.

This development was compounded by spirited load-shedding around the areas where the Printflow and Fidelity printers’ units were in operation which the source said was the MDC-T’s third strategy to subvert the special vote.

“As if that wasn’t bad enough there were power failures; everywhere else in Harare, Harare was lit except in areas around the Printflow and Fidelity Printers units,’’
MDC-T, the source said, had abused the ministries of Finance, and Energy and Power Development to frustrate the process.

“If the power cuts were genuine, these institutions should have used back-up generators, the fact that they didn’t pointed to an ulterior motive,’’ said the source.
The fifth intervention took the form of the glut of court cases from appeals challenging the ruling of the Constitutional Court to nomination court appeals.

Electoral Courts sitting in Harare and Bulawayo had to contend with 47 nomination appeals mainly from the MDC formations.
Out of these, 17 were successful, while 12 were thrown out, with the parties withdrawing 18 others.

ZEC deputy chairperson Mrs Joyce Kazembe on Monday said the effect of this was that their designers had to wait for the Electoral Court to clear the cases before they could print ballot papers.

She said ZEC only received pictures for some of the candidates last Friday and was left with one day to print enough ballots.

The designers were not clear on the final list of the nominated candidates since some of the court cases had a bearing on who would appear.

The fifth MDC-T intervention pertained to deliberately starving ZEC of funding which was released in drips and drops by the ministry of finance.

“The issue is not whether or not there are resources, where resources are found disbursement was either slowed down deliberately to make sure there was very little lead time between disbursement and use, or the amounts would be inexplicably cut simply to create a sense of resource inadequacy around the elections,’’ the source said adding that thankfully the commission had wisened to the plot and employed several interventions which could not be divulged for reasons of national security.

A statement from ZEC last night did not go beyond acknowledging that a number of voters had failed to cast their ballots and would be afforded the chance with everyone else on July 31.

Contacted for comment last night, MDC-T spokesman, Mr Douglas Mwonzora claimed Zanu-PF, the Registrar Generals office and wanted to scapegoat the MDC-T.

“Zanu-PF, the Registrar General and ZEC want to find scapegoat for the horrible handling of this exercise. It has got nothing to do with the MDC-T. As for the Court applications we are entitled to justice and we have never made an application that does not make sense. Our applications were meant to make people register and allowing ZEC to make proper logistical arrangements for special voting. The trio did not take heed and look now where we are,” he said.