By Patrick Guramatunhu
1) Who can amass the most funds
As the incumbent government, Zanu PF will commandeer all the state human and material resources for use in its election campaign.
In Zimbabwe, like many other African countries, the difference between the ruling party and government is very blurred and so it is normal for army helicopters to be used to transport party officials, national silos to be raided and the food distributed at party rallies and even plant and machinery sourced and paid for using public funds distributed to the party faithful as has been happening at Grace Mugabe’s recent rallies.
Zanu PF is known for punishing the opposition supporters by denying them access to public food and other assistance. The party is known for stopping foreign donors helping the needy because they would not abide by the party’s rules of denying opposition supporters. Teachers and other public servants have been dismissed for supporting the opposition.
During the Government of National Unity Finance Minister, Tendai Biti, complained of Zanu PF running a parallel government complete with its own funding. There is no doubt that huge expenses of running this phantom government is borne by the taxpayer directly through swindled public funds or indirectly through the looting of national treasures.
Whilst Minister Biti had to scrounge around to get enough to pay civil servants wages let alone do anything else, the Zanu PF parallel government was loaded as soon as revealed during the 2013 elections.
President Mugabe spent millions of dollars on outstanding Presidential Scholarship fees in various Universities in SA; he bought each Zanu PF election candidate a brand new car plus tens of thousands of dollar in election expenses, costing hundreds of millions of dollars; etc. Opposition candidates were on a shoestring budget!
2) Whoever has unfettered control of the state institutions will be able to manipulate the electoral process in their favour
Zimbabwe’s new constitution failed to take away the President’s power to appoint and dismiss all the top brass in the Police, Army, CIO, ZEC, Judiciary, Public Media, etc.
It is therefore not surprising that all these important institutions have all saved President Mugabe and Zanu PF’s selfish interest at the expense of the nation’s interest, especially during elections.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) has turned a blind eye to Zanu PF’s blatant disregard of its legal obligation to produce a voters roll and the Police have done nothing to stop Zanu PF instigated violence. Indeed in the 2008 elections it was the Police, Army and CIO who coordinated the wanton violence against the opposition and reportedly carried out most of the abductions and murders!
3) Intimidation and violence to induce fear remains the not effective vote rigging tool, especially in the rural areas.
Professor Jonathan Moyo was right in saying in his book, Voting for Democracy, that the 1980 election was about voting “to end the civil war”.
Anyone who thought the people’s fear that the civil war would continue if Zanu PF had lost those election was unfounded was proven wrong when President Mugabe unleashed the barbaric Fifth Brigade who carried out the Gukurahundi massacres a few years later.
Zimbabwe’s culture of political intolerance and the tendency to view one’s political opponent as one’s enemy dates back to the pre-independence days; fighting between Zanu and Zapu supporters, for example, was a common occurrence. The people were caught between the two and, to be on the safe side, it was normal for povo to have membership cards of both parties which they kept up to date at great expense.
Ever since the nation attained her independence Zanu PF has maintained its stranglehold on the nation by using state and party machinery to remind the people that the party can make their lives hell if they do not tow the party line. Fear has always been there in Zimbabwe’s body politics and, at present, Zanu PF pulls all the strings!
4) It is not enough to blatantly rig elections, one must also be able to get away with it and that demands good intelligence and counter intelligence.
The fear that the opposition has detailed information of his vote rigging schemes and the release to the whole world will expose him for the cheat that he is must be one of President Mugabe’s greatest fears.
After the 2013 rigged elections President Mugabe did not come out to celebrate as one would have expected; he had to be 100% sure Tsvangirai’s court challenge of the result was going nowhere and no other vote rigging dirt was coming out. The vote rigging leak could start from anyone and quickly become the Tsunami sweeping all before it.
Elections, by their very nature, are public events taking place at national level; and so rigging elections is a huge challenge and tougher still is making sure the vote rigging details are kept under tight wraps!
So rigging the elections and keeping the dirty tactics a secret is the soft underbelly of Zanu PF’s otherwise well-armed and well-armoured vote rigging juggernaut. President Mugabe has had to implement some dare-devil vote rigging tactics dangerously exposing his political soft underbelly.
In 1990 he increased the number of polling stations without telling the opposition who were surprised to know there had been so many as the number of ballot boxes exceeded the known polling station.
President Mugabe must have known he would not get away with that one again. So in the 2013 elections President Mugabe announced the increase of polling stations from 2 000 to 9 000 just two days before the elections. Some election observers reported polling stations manned by Zanu PF officials only and no opposition party officials or even ZEC officials!
The most audacious move by President Mugabe in the 2013 elections has to be the tampering with the voters roll by NIKUV, the Israeli company, so that one million were denied the vote because their details were not in the constituency voters roll they expected them to be. President Mugabe stubbornly refused to release the voters roll although this is legally required and he got away with it too!
Yes President Mugabe has proven to be a cunning fox still he must also thank his lucky stars that he has had some breathtakingly incompetent political opponents whom he was able to cheat in broad daylight and still get away with it. Given that he will be facing Tsvangirai and Mai Mujuru in the next elections my money is on President Mugabe out foxing the two, as he has done repeatedly in the past!
There only way to effectively stop all Zanu PF election shenanigans and getting away with murder, literally, is for the nation to implement the far reaching democratic reforms designed under the party’s dictatorial control over state institutions and open the window to public scrutiny of public finance and use of the nation’s resources such as diamonds.
If it was not for the fact that there is so much at stake in ensuring the next elections are free and fair; it would be laughable that Mai Mujuru and her ZimPF are claiming they are ready for the 2018 elections when they have done nothing to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections! Tsvangirai and his MDC friends were equally confident of winning the 2013 although they too had failed to implement even one reform and we know Zanu PF went on to blatantly rig those elections.
Zimbabwe’s ability to end the 90% plus unemployment rate, to rebuild its barely functioning health and education services, to restore clean running water and electricity supplies, etc. hinge on the nation holding free, fair and credible elections and having a good and competent government after the 2018 elections.
The people of Zimbabwe will certainly be naïve to trust Tsvangirai or Mujuru to implement the democratic reforms and deliver free and fair elections!
