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Nobleman Runyanga
One of the features of Kenya’s 9 August 2022 general elections was diaspora voting and this got some misguided Zimbabwean politicians excited.
This is because they naively think that diaspora voting is a silver bullet election strategy.
The fact that Kenya practices diaspora voting, which Zimbabwe does not, can only be cause for agitation for desperate political organisations which are clutching at straws for survival and undeserved electoral victory.
The Nelson Chamisa–led opposition party, Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC), which was forced by the MDC-T to rename itself from MDC Alliance, gets very excited whenever diaspora voting rights are mentioned.
This is because the party inanely thinks that all Zimbabweans in the diaspora nurse a grudge against Zanu PF and Government.
The party baselessly thinks that all the Zimbabweans in the diaspora support their outfit.
After failing to penetrate Zanu PF’s strongholds in the rural areas over the past 22 years, the outfit is desperate for the diaspora vote to shore up its voter tally and improve its electoral performance.
At home, the party has failed to prove why anyone should vote for its candidates.
They think the diaspora vote comes in handy to fill up the void being left by most of the urban electorate who are abandoning the party after realising that despite voting for the CCC, it rewards their loyalty with scant attention to basic service provision and unkempt urban spaces.
The CCC also pushes for the diaspora vote to be seen to be doing something for those in the diaspora who routinely contribute into its go-fund-me begging bowl for various reasons, although the party has gained notoriety for failing to properly account for the funds raised.
Despite this, the party continues to leverage the diaspora community for electoral gains.
The party is currently asking its purported diaspora members to use their remittances power to press their relatives back home to register as voters in the vain, but misplaced hope, that they will vote for the CCC next year.
This week the party’s interim secretary general, Chalton Hwende, tweeted appealing to CCC members to “convince 500 000 people in the diaspora to call and convince just one unregistered relative in Zimbabwe and one registered relative at their village who voted Zanu PF or did not vote at all in 2018 to join the opposition as part of its mobilisation efforts to secure one million new votes for Chamisa.
The diaspora voting rights issue has become a weapon for some people to fight Government.
The case of the bitter attention-seekers such as the fugitive and dethroned former Ntabazinduna Chief, Felix Ndiweni is pertinent.
The disgraced former chief forced himself onto the Ntabazinduna throne in 2014 ahead of the rightful heir to the throne, his eldest brother, Jorum Thabo Ndiweni, following the death of his father, Khayisa Ndiweni in 2010.
Ndiweni was dismissed from the Ntabazinduna chieftaincy in December 2019 following recommendations of the Matabeleland North Chiefs’ Provincial Assembly.
Prior to his dismissal, Ndiweni had been sentenced to 24 months in prison in August 2019 by Bulawayo Magistrate Gladmore Mushowe, over malicious damage to property charges after he destroyed property belonging to a villager, who had resisted an order to leave his area.
In 2021, Ndiweni appealed against both conviction and sentence and he was released on $500 bail.
He, however, fled to the UK on the pretext of seeking medical attention.
A warrant of arrest was issued against him and he promised to return to Zimbabwe, but he reneged on his word, hence his fugitive status.
Ndiweni was dismissed as a result of his own family’s disagreement with his unorthodox ascension to the Ntabazinduna chieftaincy.
The Matabeleland North Chiefs’ Provincial Assembly only recommended his dismissal on the basis of the facts presented by his family.
Instead of dealing with his family, the former chief is targeting President Mnangagwa by pushing for the diaspora vote in the bitterness-driven hope of boosting Chamisa’s vote tally next year as a way of getting back at the President.
The President crime?
Ndiweni is failing to come to terms with rejection by his own family and substituting it with the delusion that his dismissal was orchestrated by the President.
The President would profit nothing from fighting a mere village chief.
As part of his efforts to “fix” President Mnangagwa, Ndiweni has been pushing for the diaspora vote ahead of next year’s polls using mainly Twitter messages.
In December last year, Ndiweni petitioned the former British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson to press President Mnangagwa to facilitate diaspora voting for Zimbabweans in various countries across the globe.
This was preceded by a demonstration at the Zimbabwean embassy in Britain.
Johnson totally ignored Ndiweni and his project, indicating the lack of merit and substance in the bitter former chief’s petition.
The question that then arises is: What is the correct position on the matter?
Zimbabwe uses a constituency-based election system. Section 160 (1) of the Constitution directs to “divide Zimbabwe into 210 constituencies.”
There is no provision for a diaspora-based 211th constituency.
Some argue that Zimbabweans in the diaspora have the right to vote. This is true. However, the Constitution says that Government should “ensure that every citizen who is eligible to vote in an election or referendum has an opportunity to cast a vote.”
Currently, only Zimbabweans in the diaspora on Government business are able to vote using the postal voting system.
If a citizen chooses to give up their opportunity to vote by staying in the diaspora, surely Government cannot be blamed for his failure to vote.
This is why Government has pronounced itself very clearly on the matter.
It has stated that, in view economic challenges occasioned by the sanctions, it cannot organise the facilitation of diaspora voting.
In view of this, the only way that those in the diaspora can participate in elections at home is to travel back, register as voters and ensure that they are in the country on the election day to exercise their right to vote. Simple.
Government’s position demonstrates that all the hullabaloo about diaspora vote is baseless. It shows that the fight is all about using the issue as a weapon and not about the numbers involved.
A look at the Kenyan diaspora voting numbers and situation shows that the numbers are not worth the capital outlay involved.
Kenya is estimated to have four million people in the diaspora.
During this month’s elections, Kenya invested in 27 polling stations in 12 diaspora centres in 12 countries that included the United Kingdom, the United States, South Africa, and the United Arab Emirates among others.
All these elaborate preparations were for 10 444 registered citizens to vote in the diaspora.
They constituted a negligible 0.05 percent of the 22 million Kenyans who registered to vote in this year’s elections.
Yes, rights are sacrosanct. Yes, Kenya can afford it but as for Zimbabwe, at this stage in the country’s history, it is a luxury that we can ill-afford given very pressing priorities elsewhere.
This is especially so given that Zimbabwe is a small country when compared to Kenya which has a population of 53.8 million people.
If such a big country had way less than 100 000 registered voters in the diaspora one shudders to imagine what the figure would be for Zimbabwe.
As the likes of Ndiweni and the CCC campaign for diaspora voting, in all fairness, they should also campaign for the unconditional removal of the illegal sanctions which were imposed against Zimbabwe by the West.
This would enable President Mnangagwa and Zanu PF to freely campaign among Zimbabweans in countries such as the UK, the US and Australia where they are currently precluded from travelling.
This would ensure a level playing field.
From the foregoing, it is clear that the gains to be made from investing in diaspora voting are very little if any at all.
Zimbabweans in the diaspora should be on the lookout for and refuse to be used by grudge mongers like Ndiweni for his own narrow interests.
Woe betide those Zimbabwean citizens in the diaspora who continue to be used by the CCC as sources of financial resources hoping that the opposition outfit will miraculously deliver diaspora voting from outside Government where the Zimbabwean electorate has permanently consigned the political party.
Online Reporter