By Ben Semwayo
Zimbabweans are being short-changed by both the ruling party and the opposition parties: the ruling party because it is refusing to implement the changes to the electoral laws, and the opposition parties because they are sleeping on the job of demanding the realignment of the national constitution to the electoral laws.
The opposition parties should know better that electoral laws are a make-or-break factor in their success at the next election. One would have thought that they learnt a few lessons from the previous elections that the MDC-T won but lost because of an uneven playing field.
The leaders of opposition parties are locked in a brutal tussle on who will lead the proposed grand coalition, to the detriment of a fair election environment. In their zeal to secure the leadership of the coalition they have relegated the all-important electoral laws to the bottom of their to-do list and have left it to other players who will probably not benefit as much as they from victory over ZanuPF.
This crucial task, which of necessity must be spearheaded by political parties, has been sub-contracted to the civic society organisations (CSOs), which were present at the last SADC conference in South Africa urging SADC leaders to pile pressure on Mugabe to honour SADC rules on democratic elections.
The CSOs were joined in their protest by the SADC Democratic Forum, which includes members of the South African, Swaziland and Lesotho Communist Parties and the Swaziland Solidarity Network. The Forum was demonstrating against Mugabe’s reluctance to reform the electoral laws and Laurent Kabila’s unwillingness to call an election in the DRC, which should have had elections years back.
Their efforts paid off when fellow presidents grilled Mugabe on the matter of renewing electoral laws, much to his chagrin, so that he packed his bags and left the conference prematurely in a huff, grumpily licking his wounds, as the usual standing ovations and acclamations he usually basked in gave way to censure. That action by the CSOs and the SADC Democratic Forum brought us a step closer to a fairer election environment.
While we are grateful for external assistance, it is a shame that action on matters as crucial as electoral laws should be championed by organizations outside our borders as if we do not have opposition parties, whose core business is to ensure that the political playing field is level.
Our opposition parties give half-hearted attention to this vital game-changer and only mention it in passing, as an afterthought, which makes people question their seriousness in wanting to turn back the current regrettable fortunes of the country.
Looking at the way the opposition is handling the issue of electoral laws one gets the impression that the odds are stacked against them, but nothing can be further from the truth.
To begin with, the SADC, which has the oversight over governance in our region, advised our opposition parties not to entertain the idea of elections before electoral reforms had been implemented, and is continuing to offer that advice.
That advice fell on deaf ear at the last election and, judging by the way things are going, it is continuing to do so. All the opposition parties need to do is listen and refrain from participating in elections before the requisite reforms are effected.
Secondly the task should be easier than it appears because all the opposition needs to do is to be proactive in its quest for neutrality in the electoral system. They need to be more on the offensive than waiting for Mugabe to reform the laws when it suits him, because that time will never come.
While they bicker about who will lead the grand coalition they should appoint a committee that takes Mugabe head-on on the matter of electoral laws, knowing that the battle is half-won because the SADC is already on their side.
In other words the crafting of the coalition and the levelling of the political playing field should run concurrently because time is not on their side. Too much time has been spent on the elusive solution to the question of the leadership of the grand coalition.
A committee tasked with expediting the implementation of electoral reforms, headed by an uncompromising man like Job Sikhala, will yield quick results. Before you know it, it is done and dusted. Simple.
Tsvangirai, with his tunnel vision, seems to think that a win against Mugabe is impossible without the participation of Joice Mujuru. The truth is that Mujuru is a divisive liability who has not yet detached herself from ZanuPF.
If she thinks that she has the divine right to be the next President of Zimbabwe then she should try going it alone. With electoral reforms in place there is no need to waste time counting on Mujuru as the missing link to the puzzle of Zimbabwe’s liberation from the clutches of a brutal dictator. After all the ex-combatants, who Tsvangirai is under the illusion that Mujuru will court, have already indicated for the first time that they are prepared to work with him.
Tsvangirai further made the costly mistake of dictating who participates in the grand coalition that is not so grand. For reasons best known to himself he picked Mujuru, with whom he has little in common, (though claiming for convenience’s sake that they have everything in common) and shunned parties that are ideologically closer to his own.
That left the door wide open for the creation of a second (supposedly) grand coalition. When you want to form a grand coalition that works you do not bar anyone from joining your coalition. If everyone had been included in the coalition Mujuru would not have had anyone to form an alternative coalition with and would therefore not have had any room to make the ridiculous demand to lead the coalition.
The coalition aside, for once the opposition needs to acknowledge the importance of electoral reforms and proceed with speed to demand their urgent implementation.
