Candidates recount how ‘rigging’ took place

By Fungi Kwaramba

HARARE – Losing MDC parliamentary candidates have opened up, recounting how Zanu PF  “stole the elections right in front of our eyes” as the opposition party mounts its court challenge to the July 31 poll results.

Although Mugabe was officially declared the winner with an unassailable 61 percent of the total vote cast against Tsvangirai’s paltry 34 percent, the MDC has said it will go to the courts within the next 14 days to contest the poll outcome.

Yesterday, the losing MPs flooded the party headquarters, Harvest House, and took turns to recount how voters were either frogmarched to polling stations by Zanu PF shock troopers or were forced to claim illiteracy.

Some uniformed forces and recruits, according to the MDC losing candidates, voted twice while unidentified men in overcoats trooped to polling stations in areas such as Gutu on the eve of the election allegedly with marked ballot papers that favoured Zanu PF.

MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai has already declared the elections “null and void” and yesterday the losers presented what they said was evidence to buttress their president’s stance.

MDC candidate and former Zanu PF MP Tracey Mutinhiri, whose bid to reclaim her Marondera East seat fell through, claimed that the election was predetermined by the secretive printing of ballots as well as the bussing of people from other constituencies.

“Zanu PF had an upper hand in the just ended polls, they sent people to instil fear among voters and also bring fake ink,” Mutinhiri said. “Several people voted twice and the number of people who voted in these elections did not tally with the number of people in the constituency.

This was a sham election which was rigged in front of our eyes and the ballot paper that was used was questionable, it was so thin”.

Ralph Magunje, who was eying the Magunje seat, chillingly recounted how people in military uniform criss-crossed the sun-baked roads of the impoverished constituency drumming support for Mugabe.

“A few days before elections, some soldiers were moving around reminding people of the dire consequences if they voted for the MDC and on the polling day recruits also voted with us under strict supervision from their bosses,” he said.

MDC losing legislator for Hurungwe West, Wilson Makanyaire, also raised concern over the number of people who were assisted during the just ended polls.

“There was massive rigging in Hurungwe West, people were forced to vote using Zanu PF membership cards and not the proper national registration documents,” he said.

The poll’s credibility has been further called into question by the resignation of one of the nine official electoral commissioners. Mkhululi Nyathi quit over “the manner” in which the polls “were proclaimed and conducted”.

Hundreds of thousands of unregistered people used fake registration slips obtained from Zanu PF officials throughout the country.

In the rural areas, villagers were force marched to polling stations by village heads who threatened that if they did not vote for Zanu PF, their hands would be cut off in 2008 style.

The village heads told the largely illiterate rural folk that Tsvangirai and his MDC went for elections confident of a landslide victory but ignorant of where the ballot papers were printed and without the voters’ roll.

A South African investigating company Nasini Projects claims it is 99 percent sure that the just ended polls which ended the four year coalition government, were rigged.

Nasini Projects claims a delicate ballot paper was used to rig the election alleging the ballot had a watermark  X against Mugabe and Zanu PF’s name such that if any ink is placed on the paper, the substance on the paper will react and remove the ink and activate the watermarked X into print.

Teachers who took part in the ballot counting process claimed that some of the Xs were so faint.

Teachers from Uzumba, who also came to the MDC headquarters, also recalled how they were forced to profess illiteracy at named polling stations.

“We were taken to a clinic where our hands were bandaged and then taken to the polling station where we were assisted to vote by known war veterans,” said a teacher who declined to be named.

The MDC and the African Union (AU) have both raised concerns at the high number of people who were assisted to vote.

“I was given a torch which had the face of Mugabe and told by the presiding officers to take the picture after I had voted,” claimed  another teacher from Uzumba.

Victims of the 2008 brutal presidential election run-off were targeted in Uzumba, which is widely regarded a Zanu PF stronghold.

Zanu PF activists allegedly recorded names of people who voted, according to the MDC.

The overprinting of ballot papers, high number of assisted voters and some being turned away that was raised by MDC candidates was also raised by the AU.

Ex-Nigerian President Olesugun Obasanjo, who headed the AU mission, also questioned why the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) had to print 8.7 million ballot papers, 35 percent more than the number of registered voters.

International best practices put the overprinting of ballot papers between 5-10 percent not 35 percent and this according to the AU, raises concerns over the accountability of unused ballot papers.

Although the AU, Sadc and Zec have declared that the elections were peaceful, Luke Tamborinyoka, Tsvangirai’s spokesperson said the MDC is building a strong case to challenge the poll results. Daily News