An underwhelming victory, an overwhelming boycott

By Luke Tamborinyoka

Zimbabweans last week made a loud statement in heeding the call by MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai to snub the poll until electoral reforms are implemented to level the playing field and breed a credible outcome.

The ZANU PF winning candidates had paltry votes when the majority stayed away to heed the call by the MDC, the party that has always held sway in most constituencies where these by elections were held.

The result was an underwhelming victory by Zanu PF which claims it won the election while those who stayed away made an overwhelming statement by the sheer numbers. Judging the people’s excitement on elections, one of the reasons they stayed away was because they agreed with the MDC that is demanding a truly level playing field as a precondition to participation in elections.

Zimbabweans basically stayed away from the vote and even vote brazen buying through the provision of cash and rice by the two Vice Presidents in Tsholotsho failed to push the turn out beyond 20 percent of registered voters.

And you can rest assured that our election management body will not do anything about the vote buying, and even the abuse of traditional leaders by Zanu PF where there is abundant evidence of the Zanu PF secretary for administration, Ignatius Chombo, directing traditional leaders to violate the law.

The Zimbabwe Election Support Network noted several irregularities, all of which are the reasons for the MDC’s non participation.

ZESN noted irregularities such as vote-buying and the abuse of transitional leaders, particularly in Hurungwe west, Tsholotsho and Headlands, where village heads were commandeering people to vote for certain parties.

ZESN also noted that the police were in inside police stations and we assisting people to vote, contrary to the provisions of the Electoral Act.

Last week’s experience of a minority in celebration is not new to some of us.

I have had personal experience where the losers celebrate an empty victory.

In August 2013, a fleet of six commuter omnibuses pulled up at the gate to my house and brought bemused ZANU PF supporters to ” celebrate” their victory at my homestead after the stolen election of July 31, 2013.

No sooner had the crowd in the commuter omnibuses disembarked than over 100 despondent Zimbabweans in the locality gathered to chase them away, asking why they were celebrating such a national funeral. That there were more despondent people who had lost the election chasing away the few victors was the evidence, if ever there was need for any, that the last election was rigged.

The question was why losers would outnumber the winners; which is exactly what we saw last week when more people complied with Tsvangirai’s directive than those who won.

As in previous elections, the majority of Zimbabweans who stayed away won these elections but lost the results.

We are not demanding anything new, but issues that were already agreed under by the parties under the auspices of SADC and the AU but which Zanu PF refused to implement.

Summary if these reforms were contained in a flyer distributed by the MDC in all the constituencies where by-elections took place week. The ZANU PF political commissar, Saviour Kasukuwere, appeared to be miffed by this flyer. In his typical warped weevil logic, he reportedly asked why a party would urge people not to exercise their democratic right to vote.

The weevils in Zanu PF are impervious to the fact that people can also exercise their democratic right not to vote, especially in a charade masquerading as an election.

It is pertinent to note that the demand for reforms is in vogue beyond Zimbabwe and beyond politics.

Whether at ZIFA or FIFA, people are demanding far reaching reforms to improve credibility and calling on those at the helm of these institutions to resign and bring back the confidence in the people’s sport.

We in the MDC are making the same demand to Robert Mugabe and his government they should simply reform now or quit.

If they don’t as is likely, they must know that we reserve our right to engage in other routes of a strategic nature whose details we cannot divulge in a newspaper column.

But one stark fact emerged from the election figures this week.

What came out was an underwhelming victory by a minority and an overwhelming political statement by the majority to chose to stay away until reforms are implemented.

Only a fool would ignore the demands and the reasons of the majority who stayed away.

Who knows, they could be planning to express themselves in far much louder but legitimate means that are permissible under the new Constitution.

And one other fact is that the demand for reforms has become an area of convergence. Even Zanu PF, through Didymus Mutasa who was a senior leader only until a few months ago, is saying Tsvangirai is right.

And the people in their diversity agreed with our position, from Luveve to Kambuzuma, Zimbabweans went about their business and ignored this sham.

The MPs that “won” had amassed a small number of votes that befit a councilor but are choosing to ignore the bigger message for reforms that came from the people on wednesday.

Those who the Gods want to destroy, they first make mad.

Luke Tamborinyoka is the Presidential spokesperson and Director of Communications in the MDC-T. he writes here in his personal capacity.