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National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and other donors who have nefarious electoral interests in Zimbabwe.
Programmes
The ERC’s programming is centred on four key elections issues namely: (a) Voter Mobilisation (b) Training of MDC-T party agents (c) Monitoring the Election Environment and (d) Acting as an Election Command Centre for the MDC-T on Election Day
Voter Mobilisation
This is the most important part of ERC programming. It is split into several sub-components depending on the strategies used and the people targeted for mobilisation. From information gathered so far, the voter mobilisation strategies have been dependent on the various needs of the target groups. So far three strategies have been used.
(1) First-time Voter Mobilisation
This strategy targets the youths who have never voted. It has been realised that the MDC-T has been having a lot of goodwill from the youths and attendances at rallies has been overwhelming.
However, the overwhelming rallying of the youths behind the party has not been translated into votes on Election Day.
Researches done by the ERC under the guidance of Topper Whitehead have shown that a lot of youths who purported to support the party were not registered to vote hence they could not vote on Election Day.
Resources have therefore been mobilised and distributed to different youth organisations that are then co-ordinated by the ERC in the voter mobilisation drive. Currently nine youth organisations are working on the programme.
At the end of this report is a list of the organisations and the areas they are working in.
The project, which was piloted in 20 swing constituencies and funded by the American Aid (USAID) and the British Embassy to the tune of US$500 000-00 and ran for 10 months beginning April 2012 ending January 2013 has now been expanded to cover all the country’s 210 constituencies although emphasis is on Masvingo and Manicaland provinces.
With Funding of $1,250 000.00 has been provided for the exercise by Sida and one new youth organisation Community Transformation for Development (COTRAD) has been added to the list of those mobilising voters.
NB Churches have also been added to the list of organisations mobilising voters for the MDC-T. Zimbabwe Pastors Fellowship headed by Pastor Munemo of Methodist Church has been roped in and the exercise on churches is also co-ordinated by ERC.
Purpose: The project seeks to mobilise people who are not registered in the swing constituencies to register as voters while, at the same time, the voter mobilisers double as campaign personnel for the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T) parliamentary candidates in these constituencies.
How it operates: The Election Resource Centre (ERC), with the help of MDC-T district and ward structures and in consultation with the MDC-T aspiring or incumbent legislators, identify and recruits 3 peer voter mobilisation trainers in every ward in a chosen constituency.
These 3 trainers per ward are trained in voter mobilisation, electoral administration and observation and given resources to recruit and train 10 more voter mobilisers each. Each ward ends up having 33 voter mobilisers. This group of people is called a voters’ club.
The 3 initial trainers should be one male, one female and one youth. In the end, the 33 should be 11 men, 11 women and 11 youths. Each of the 33 is given a ward voters’ roll from which he/she can easily identify who among their peers is not registered to vote.
After identifying potential registrants, the 33 individuals then go out to persuade their targets, not only to register to vote, but who to vote for come Election Day. The 33 mobilisers per ward are given monetary allowances they use, whenever necessary, to induce compliance into potential registrants.
A list of the potential registrants is then compiled and the ERC head office is contacted to provide transport and logistics to have these potential registrants transported to district offices for registration. The registrants are also given allowances and drinks on the day of registration.
It is planned that registrants should be ferried to registration centres at least once every month for 10 weeks in each constituency. The ERC projects that it has registered an average 10 000 new voters in each province as at Friday 12 April 2013.
(2) The Urban Centre Voter Mobilisation Drive
Under this programme and strategy, the ERC, with funding from Freedom House, is currently holding training workshops with residents associations in 8 urban centres to mobilise a critical mass of potential voters for the forth-coming elections.
The reason behind this urban voter mobilisation strategy is based on the realisation that although the MDC-T has been winning most of the urban seats since 2000, the voter percentage turnout in most urban centres has averaged 33 percentage points. It is the MDC-T’s argument that in 2008, had the voter turnout in urban areas, where the party won most of its seats, been anything above 45 percentage points, the party’s presidential candidate could have won at least 50+1 percent of the total votes cast out thus becoming the president of the republic.
The urban voter mobilisation drive is therefore key for the presidential election not the parliamentary seats since the party is contend it can win the parliamentary seats with whatever voter turnout. The ERC has therefore secured funding from Freedom House to train members of different residents associations in Harare, Gweru, Bulawayo, Kwekwe, Masvingo, Mutare, Chinhoyi and Marondera.
Already, training has been done in Harare with the Combined Harare Residents Association (CHRA). The other trainings would take place in the other six urban centres on dates to be established. The person doing the trainings is Jack Zaba, our point person at the organisation.
Below is the list of youth organisations and the areas they are working in.
(a) National Youth Development Trust (NYDT)
It is working in Bulawayo Central, Bulawayo East, Bulawayo South, Emkandeni Entumbane, Lobengula, Luveve, Magwegwe, Makokoba, Nketa, Nkulumane, Pelandaba Mpopoma, Lupane East and Lupane West constituencies.
(b) Youth Initiative for Democracy in Zimbabwe (YIDEZ)
It is working in Magunje, Chitungwiza North, Chitungwiza South, St Mary’s, Zengeza East and Zengeza West constituencies.
(c ) Zimbabwe Young Women’s Network for Peace Building (ZYWNPB)
It is working in Murehwa North, Highfield East and Highfield West constituencies.
(d) Youth Agenda Trust (YAT)
It is working in Wedza South and Goromonzi West.
(e) Youth Forum
It is working in Masvingo Central and Bikita West
(f) Platform for Youth Development (PYD)
It operates in Mutare West, Chipinge Central, Chimanimani East and Chikomba East.
(g) Student Solidarity Trust (SST) and Student Christian Movement of Zimbabwe (SCMZ)
These are working in Bindura South, Gokwe Kabuyuni, Gokwe Sesame, Zhombe, Silobela, Chiwundura, Chirumanzu, Masvingo North, Masvingo West and Buhera South.
Training of Party Agents: The ERC is responsible for the training, deployment and mobilising resources to pay party agents on Election Day. The MDC-T believes some of its party agents were bribed by Zanu-PF in 2008 because of the meagre payments the party was offering them hence there are efforts now that the ERC takes care of the funds mobilisation for the payment of the party agents.
The argument is that Zanu-PF, capitalising on the poor per diems paid by the MDC-T to its agents, bribed the agents and rigged the elections in 2008. The ERC seeks, therefore, to mobilise funds and put in place logistics that there would not be “a repeat of the 2008 fiasco”.
Monitoring of the Electoral Environment: The ERC, like the Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN), monitors the electoral environment and constantly updates the MDC-T and international interested parties of their findings as a way of creating legitimacy of voice so that if, in the event the MDC-T loses elections, it can declare the elections were not free and fair and possibly attract international condemnation of the polls.
In this regard, the ERC has formed partnership with the Media Centre. The ERC gathers information in the various constituencies they are operational and any juicy information on elections or the electoral environment that they get would be transmitted to the Media Centre where “freelance” journalists would be assigned to work on the story.
After the journalists complete the writing of the stories, the Media Centre liaises with media organisations, local and foreign, to have the stories published. The Media Centre, through Freedom House, has money to pay the journalists for doing the stories.
Acting as an Election Command Centre for the MDC-T: One of the things noted by donors in the 2008 elections was that electoral message transmission by the MDC-T was haphazard and unco-ordinated hence the party was giving out different figures during its many press conferences where it was declaring itself the winner of both the parliamentary and presidential elections and this dealt a big blow to the party’s claim for victory.
Having noted this challenge, the donors and the MDC-T then tasked the ERC to act as the command centre for the MDC-T in the forthcoming elections. The ERC would be using the MDC-T party agents that they train as their observers on Election Day.
Brief information on the ERC — Background: This was formed as a result of frustration by the MDC-T and some donor organisations on ZESN’s activities and programming. Key among the issues that the donors and MDC-T had with ZESN was the issue of Parallel Voter Tabulation (PVT) and ZESN’s failure to out-rightly announce election results in the March 2008 harmonised election. Donor organisations, especially (National Democratic Institute) NDI and its former employee, Delipan, were the most critical of ZESN’s failure to do PVT and exit polls.
It was then mooted that the MDC-T forms its own organisation whose programming is similar to that of ZESN but one which was willing to tackle PVT and exit polls which ZESN had been reluctant to do over the years.
Initially, the Director of ERC, Tawanda Chimhini was working from Harvest House, the MDC-T headquarters, before moving out when funds were secured for offices and office furniture.
Key Personnel: Tawanda Chimhini. He is the founding Director. He is a graduate of the Midlands State University and former Monitoring and Evaluation Officer at ZESN. He was also a Regional Manager at (Zimbabwe Civic Education Trust) ZIMCET which was run by his father David Chimhini who is now an MDC-T MP.
Jack Zaba: He is former ZESN field officer for Bulawayo. He is a graduate of the political science department at UZ. He also holds a Masters in International Relations.
Ignatius Mafura: He is the statistician responsible for data manipulation from the voters’ rolls. He is the central figure in data analysis especially from the electronic voters’ rolls.
Tatenda Mazarura: She is a programme’s assistant. She is a recent graduate from MSU. She was employed at the organisation by her boyfriend Jacob Mafumhe who was then responsible for setting up the centre when he was still with USAID. Mafumhe works in the Prime Minister’s office.
Funding: The organisation is currently funded by two donors, USAID and the British Embassy which came in January 2011. Apart from the money given for activities, the British
Embassy has also provided a vehicle, Toyota Prado TX (AAU 6612) for use by the organisation in its outreach programmes.
From information at hand, the funding is not adequate for the activities that the organisation wants to embark on which include training of MDC-T party agents, training and deployment of observers at every polling station and voter education in each ward. However, efforts are being made to co-ordinate donors in the country to pull resources and form a basket fund that would finance the operations of the organisation.
Activities
(1) Voters’ Roll Audit
This has already been done using an electronic version of the March 2008 voters’ roll. Apart from the March 2008 electronic voters’ roll, the organisation also has electronic copies of the 2002 and May 2010 rolls.
These copies were allegedly gotten from ZEC through bribing ZEC officials and Topper Whitehead is said to have played a key role in securing the electronic copies of the voters’ roll while Freedom House provided the funds for the bribes.
(2) Pre-election environment monitoring
The organisation has recruited 210 long-term observers who give monthly reports on the situation in various constituencies. Information is relayed through text messages and the categories of information are coded, eg, political violence (7), campaign (4) intimidation (5) for easy of transmission as text messages. The LTO then punches in the codes and names of people and places and sends a text message to the centre. These text messages are then transferred to a programmed computer which then gives out a narrative that will be used in preparing the centre’s monthly report.
(3) Recruitment of potential polling day observers by forming structures in every ward
The organisation has embarked on a recruitment exercise of polling day observers in every ward. They are forming structures they call Voters clubs. The club members gather regularly to deliberate on electoral issues. It is not clear what sort of issues they would be discussing around elections.
The idea of forming voters clubs came up after realising that ZESN failed to adequately recruit observers for each polling station as a result of the flawed recruitment system it employed. ZESN relied on one LTO in each constituency to recruit polling day observers and the LTO often recruited relatives and friends who happened to be from one area. This resulted in a situation where some polling stations had up to three observers when others had none.
(4) Capacity building of MDC-T election agents
ERC was set up to capacitate MDC-T agents on electoral procedure, observing and monitoring elections and how best to relay information to the MDC-T national command centre during national elections.
(5) Parallel Voter Tabulation and Exit Polls
ERC was also formed to prepare and undertake PVT and exit polls surveys during elections. PVT is meant to publicise “election results” to the international community before the official ZEC results are announced. This is meant to pre-empt the ZEC process and discredit it in the event the opposition loses. This strategy falls into a grand plan called “defending the vote”.
Online Reporter