Sanctions campaign ploy to sanitise poll theft

When President Robert Gabriel Mugabe launched the national anti-sanctions campaign on the 14th day before the ides of March 2011, I just dismissed the chicanery in a raillery way reminiscent of Julius Ceaser’s, ‘The ides of March are come’, and nothing had happened or would happen.

However, the recent announcement by Zanu PF through Retired Major Anywhere Mutambudzi that more than 2,2 million people signed the anti-sanctions petition shows that ‘Yes they are come but have not past’ as the soothsayer said to Caesar.

Whereas most political scientists have reiterated that the anti-sanctions ploy is a Zanu PF campaign gimmick meant to keep the nation in a PF mode ahead of elections, I posit that it is a sophisticated move to pre-empty the envisaged rigging of Zimbabwe’s post transition election. Why and how?

First, a historical snapshot of elections shows that Zanu PF’s edge over its contestants in elections since 1980 can be explained by a doctrine called the ‘margin of error’, whereby Zanu-PF, through manipulation of election officials, inflates votes in favour of its candidates and deflates votes of its opponents in announcing election results.

A clear example of vote inflation is the March 31 2005 election where the election officials announced that in Mutasa South constituency a total of 15 753 people had cast their vote at the close of polling stations, however within a 24 hour gestation period, the ballot papers gave birth to 3 343 baby ballots and Zanu PF won by 335 votes.

In contrast, in the same election, ballot papers also committed cannibalism, literally eating each other, in Beitbridge constituency where at the close of the poll 36 821 votes were recorded but on the following day, ironically fools day, 15 669 ballots had been swallowed and Zanu PF won the seat by 8 008 votes.

This practise has characterised the conduct of Zimbabwe’s elections. What then with the 2 million anti-sanctions signature? The figure 2 million does not come from mars; it is a significant number in Zimbabwe’s electoral politics.

An electoral trajectory depicts that President Mugabe got above 2 million votes in the 1985 election, 1996 election, June 27, 2008 and above 1.5 million votes in the 2002 election.

Treading on this historical justification Zanu-PF is prepared to inflate its presidential vote to a figure close to 2 million in the coming election whenever it is held. More precisely, Zanu PF contemplates announcing a similar trend of election results as it got when it was a sole candidate in the June 27, 2008 election.

If Zanu PF reproduces the June 27, 2008 election results and is able to sanitise them as it is desperately trying to do through a preceding 2 million anti-sanctions signature collection it can hang in there. The major headache is that the numbers are difficult to sell to the nation, SADC and the world.

How then do they sanitise the numbers before reproducing them in the next election? The strategy is to maintain the June 27 poll result particularly in Mashonaland Provinces and Midlands which  means  Zanu PF (re) creating a total of around  1 151 137 in these four provinces.

A breakdown shows that in Mashonaland West, East, Central and Midlands President Mugabe got 256 699, 276 912, 315 119, 302 407 votes respectively. A quick scan reveals that by the 30th of April 2011, anti-sanctions signatures collected in Mashonaland West, East, Central  and Midlands were  231 919, 307 651, 246 729, 230 900 respectively giving a total of  1 017 199.

More petition forms are still to trickle in. This is why the announcement by Retired Mutambudzi is a ploy to justify, glorify and reproduce the June 27 margin of error.  The grand strategy hinges on an assumption that Prime Minister Morgan Richard Tsvangirai’s 29 March, 2008 vote would remain around 1 195 562.

If ZANU PF then maintains a creation of over a million-mark in the aforementioned four provinces it will be left with a silver task of getting around 150 000 votes in the remaining provinces to claim Presidential victory.

How will the vote be inflated or deflated? The partisan election officials employed by the Zimbabwe Election Commission (ZEC) will be manipulated in the election. The strategy is to deflate figures of the MDC candidate as information is transmitted to the constituency registrar or command centre.

On the other hand there will be inflation of figures for the Zanu PF candidate as election results are relayed to the national command centre. It is at the collation level where there will be deflation and inflation of numbers. This is precisely why Zanu PF’s G.P.A negotiators are clinging hard to the old ZEC secretariat perceived partisan by all sundry.

Given the number of living registered voters on the 5 million voters roll it is commonsensical to note the difficulty of losing an election with a figure of up to 2 million. The twin strategy in aiding deflation and inflation of votes is to frustrate and thwart parallel voter tabulation (PVT) by independent civil society.

It is therefore clear that the 2 million anti-sanctions signature collection is more than a campaign gimmick. It is a plot to slaughter democracy in the post transition election and sanitise murder through tallying numbers.

Zanu PF is basically preparing the nation, Sadc and the world to psychologically get accustomed to the figure 2 million as it attempts to head for that magical target in the impending poll. The statistical results of the next national election should mirror those of the sanctions signature in order to pre-empty and dilute any allegations of theft by mathematical margins of error.

The narrow thinking is that it will be difficult to accuse Zanu PF of election rigging if the 2.2 million signatures, backed by National Identity Numbers, show a complementary trend to the June 27 chicanery and forthcoming poll.

The sly attempt to steal the next poll can be decimated through political strategies that for obvious reasons cannot be discussed in this public space unless one is as translucent as Nathaniel ‘icho’ Manheru.

So as the seer told Julius Caesar on his way to the theatre of Pompey, I reckon Zanu PF’s announcement that the two million anti-sanctions signatures are here and I say, ‘Yes they are come but have not past’.

Phillan Zamchiya, PhD candidate, University of Oxford, United Kingdom. He can be reached on email: [email protected]