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Professor Jonathan Moyo
Three days after claiming that he has V11s showing that he won the presidential election, which he in fact lost by a wide margin, in a WhatsApp message sent on his behalf as an SOS by Jameson Timba, Chamisa is now desperately asking “WHOEVER” [yes, whoever] has access to all the MPs to get them to bring “all V11s, V23Bs and V23As (ward level)”.
A copy of Chamisa’s SOS message sent on his behalf by Jameson Timba is attached herewith, and reproduced below for ease of reading:
Hon Timba
Forwarded
“Whoever has access to all the MPs, please tell them to bring ALL V11s, V23Bs and V23As (ward level). Not enough emphasis has been placed on V23As in my view. We need all these docs to complete our data set.”
Chamisa’s SOS WhatsApp message sent on his behalf by Timba proves two things:
1. First, Chamisa did not have a sufficient number of polling agents to secure a meaningful number of V11s, V23As, V23Bs; let alone V23Cs on election day.
The message says “We need all these docs to complete our data set”. In other words, Chamisa does not have a complete data set of V11s to make or support his claim.
Apparently, some of the few polling agents that Chamisa had either left the polling stations they served before vote counting started, because they were hungry as food had not been delivered to them during the voting process; or because they had not been paid their allowances at the agreed time before or during the voting process.
2. Now that it is clear Chamisa does not have the V11s, and that this is now an open secret in CCC circles, it has become common cause that Chamisa’s claim that he won is hot air.
Chamisa has absolutely no basis for the claim.
To make the situation worse for him, the few V11s that he has, show that he lost.
Chamisa also has an in-house Parallel Vote Tabulation (PVT) result collated by a combination of local observers and NGOs sponsored by the usual donors which also shows that he lost the presidential election.
This is why Chamisa has now sent an SOS to “whoever” has access to MPs, hoping the MPs have V11s that he can cling onto, in what is now a hopeless pursuit.
Because he has no V11s to support his case, and because he is only too aware of what the Constitutional Court will ask for should he go there, Chamisa and his lawyers have resolved not to approach the ConCourt.
They say going to the ConCourt will expose their case and cost them support in Sadc, which has become their last prayer.
After the announcement of the result three days ago, Chamisa was hoping to base his case on the preliminary report of the Sadc Election Observer Mission.
But Chamisa’s Sadc hopes are now fading into very thin air.
To begin with, the Sadc Election Observer Mission’s preliminary report is manifestly based on hearsay, very bad hearsay, and that hearsay is a regurgitation of unsubstantiated political claims by Chamisa and his CCC cohorts made before and during the election.
Even worse, the report blatantly violates the Sadc Code for Observers on Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections (2021) which requires observers to base their observation reports on what they actually heard directly from not just one side but all sides on any matter they’re reporting on; and on what they themselves directly observed.
Apart from relying on very bad hearsay, because all of it is one sided from CCC and its affiliates, the preliminary report of Sadc’s Election Observation Mission is particularly objectionable and unacceptable because it makes judicial pronouncements of cases that either have been decided by the courts or are pending in the courts; when it has neither jurisdiction nor competence to deal with those issues. It is shocking and quite bizarre that an election observation mission imagines that it can overturn the electoral will of the people of Zimbabwe and delegitimise their general election by simply alleging that High Court and Constitutional Court decisions, for example on delimitation, or legislation enacted by Parliament, for example the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Amendment Act [the so-called Patriotic Act] are among “some aspects” of the conduct of last week’s elections that “fell short of the requirements of the Constitution of Zimbabwe, the Electoral Act, and the SADC Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections (2021)”.
Yesterday Nerves Mumba, the embattled Chairperson of the Sadc Election Observation Mission was all over television news media within Sadc, especially in South Africa, defending a preliminary report as if it was final, and going beyond to effectively claim that last week’s election was not legitimate, using irrational and intemperate language.
The whole issue has become a circus, around Nerves Mumba, and that’s unfortunate because it needlessly tarnishes Sadc’s image and worse, it invites ridicule for Mumba’s appointing authority.
That is unprecedented, undiplomatic and unacceptable. The bottom line is that, even with the best of intentions, the Preliminary Statement of the Sadc Election Observation Mission cannot withstand the simplest of scrutiny.
It is not evidenced-based, as it is entirely based on hearsay; it did not give the institutions it implicates, such as the Zimbabwe Republic Police, the right to be heard, it did not take into account the fact that the challenges faced by ZEC at the start of polling day were in fact redressed, and the affected polling stations were given 12 extra hours, effectively an additional polling day.
What is wore is that even if it were to withstand all scrutiny, which it does not, it would still amount to precious little because no election anywhere in the world can be decided by election observers, not least because doing so would make a mockery of the rule of law.
Election observers — who always participate by invitation of the country holding an election and not by right or duty — help to improve the administration and management of elections, but they never ever decide the outcome of any election anywhere in the world!
Online Reporter