Polls: Interfere not with the voice of God

Nick Manganwa View from the Diaspora
A British author known as Simon O. Sinek once said “leadership is not about the next election. It is about the next generation”. This appears to have been inspired by James Freeman Clarke, who in 1888 said; “A politician thinks of the next election. A statesman thinks of the next generation.”

Maybe this is partly why Zimbabweans have found elections a very trying time. They are certainly a necessary evil, but an evil all the same. What with the fissures and polarisation they bring to our communities. But this is the only transparent way through which one can occupy public office and have the right to preside over public affairs.

When the President came back from his short stint in exile, he said, “Today we are witnessing the beginning of a new and unfolding democracy.”’ That statement made a lot of concessions and the biggest of all was an implied admission that there were a lot of shortcomings in our democracy.

The party he leads, which is this columnist’s party, needs to look at itself and if not sure, ask its highly engaging President, what was wrong with our democracy and what he wants changed for that new democracy to fully unfold. The President said things are not going to be “business as usual . . .” anyone who supports this President should ensure that it is not going to be business as usual.

The gap he identified in our democracy must be filled. The shortcomings in our democracy should be rectified. It means our electoral processes; our electioneering culture and our treatment of voters cannot be business as usual. Our electioneering should reflect the advent of a “new democracy”.

Anything else is opposing the President and his vision. We all realise that there is a lot scepticism from some quarters over the sincerity of the President. Earlier, he had quoted a very popular Latin maxim “Vox Populi, Vox Dei” which translates into, “the voice of the people is the voice of God”.

By saying these things he was staking his democratic credentials and reputation on delivering a new politics for Zimbabwe. Now everyone wants him to deliver on that. He needs his party to be on board on this. If some of the comrades are not careful, they will foil this noble effort to take our country to the next democratic level.

It is this new level of democracy that will usher in a new level of economic development and socio-economic transformation. President Mnangagwa is looking for the moral right from the citizens of our country to govern Zimbabwe.

The fact that it does not sit well with him to govern without a moral foundation is a feather on his democratic hat. Many would be satisfied by just controlling the levers of power. But everyone knows that he is an undisputed leader of Zanu-PF as the party nominated him to finish President Mugabe’s term.

He now wants his own moral foundation. Now to those who are entertaining the idea of coercing citizens to express their will a certain way using threats of force, threats of a blowback or a backlash, that is not only immoral; it goes against the interests of the same President whose interests they are purporting to be working for.

We cannot have a “New Era” if we keep the same electioneering methods. Right now Zanu-PF has a good product to sell. It’s an entity receiving a lot of cheerful acquiescence from the people. But that benevolence does not come free and it should not be taken for granted. The price to pay is to do things the right way in order to have a buy-in from the people. Legitimacy means continuing to have the support of our people.

So instead of intimidating people to come to our side, let us convince them, charm them even. This is not to say people are being intimidated. But if how we do things makes people feel scared then we should review it and make sure our message and intentions are not misinterpreted. An example here will help illustrate the point.

Zanu-PF informed ZEC, Zimbabwe Institute and other parties through the Interparty Dialogue that it will be keeping an audit of members in its structures who have registered to vote.

In Zanu-PF’s organogram, the cell is the grassroots and base of the party. So from that level all members on its books are encouraged to register to vote. The party always pays serious attention to detail. The value of any member to a political party is different, but the most undisputed value is their vote.

It therefore follows that a member who is not registered to vote is almost useless in an election unless they add value in a completely different way, but sadly not many can.

So Zanu-PF takes the registration of its own members quite seriously.

When you apply for registration as a Zanu-PF member you complete an application form with a lot of personal information needed in the fields. Some of the required information is whether you have registered to vote. If you answer in the negative then the party has a mechanism that ensures that you are followed up and you encouraged to do so.

Churches have almost similar approaches to new congregants. They are followed up and supported in different ways whether it is to be baptised or whatever else is considered core to the ethos of the church. In Zanu-PF, it is voting. The MDC-T has its own operations which are family based encouragements which they dubbed, “Bereka Mwana” and “Mhou Nemhuru yayo”. We are not going to get into those. Focus will be on Zanu-PF as the party of Government. So naturally, Zanu-PF keeps a database of its members which holds different information sets about them including National ID number, passport number etc.

One hopes most parties have that if they are organised enough. And among this information is the serial number of one’s voter registration reference. In the long run, it means when Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) produces a Voters’ Roll, Zanu-PF can easily look at that roll and have a ballpark view of how many votes it is going to have if all its members turn out and don’t change their minds on their allegiance. This is called attention to detail. It’s not a bad thing at all and ZEC is aware of it. It also means Zanu-PF has a baseline to audit the ZEC Voters’ Roll against and if any of its members is missing from that roll it has basis to complain. This columnist contends that there is nothing untoward in this process. But here is the problem;

There have been reports that some Zanu-PF activists have been going around asking all and sundry for their BVR Registration slips or serial numbers. If anyone is doing that they are bringing the party into disrepute for nothing. They are missing the point of the exercise and collecting absolutely pointless data. This process has to be voluntary and should apply to party members only. What they are collecting has no value to the party and they are messing up with the New Era and working against the President. This is because international election observers will start landing in the country from the moment an election is proclaimed by the President. These observers will stay until after the elections. They will speak to ordinary people and the ordinary people will say they were intimidated by Zanu-PF youths confiscating their BVR slips and such. These types of reports will be compiled and will be used to delegitimise the election. That will be a disaster for President Mnangagwa, but more importantly a disaster for our country.

A lot in Zimbabwe will depend on how that election is going to go. The full acceptance of Zimbabwe into the community of nations, debt relief and any enthusiastic buy-in from investors, all such are dependent on the coming election being perceived as a free will of the Zimbabwean people. People should not seek relevance through things that are morally and illegally wrong and counterproductive to both the interests of the party and country. Legitimacy is acceptance of how the government works. President Mnangagwa wants an endorsement by his people to say that they like the way he is governing them. He needs endorsement to say they give consent of his leadership. This consent cannot be right if coerced or enforced or perceived that way.

While Zimbabwe has good institutions there is need to optimise them and maximise the economic performance that comes with stable regime and functioning institutions.

Whatever outcome which comes out of a process full of illicit electoral tactics is not going to give the country the economic results it desperately needs. Illicit tactics produce illegitimate results and puts the country into a legitimacy crisis. If illicit tactics are going to be used in the forthcoming elections then President Mnangagwa will have failed in his key promises and mantras.

The voice of the people has to be the voice of God. What would be the point of saying that then his agents tamper with the voice of God? Zimbabwe wants genuine democracy and not sham elections. And knowing President Mnangagwa, this columnist has no doubt that he means what he says. So the party should disown all those who violate the basic tenets of the genuine voice of the people. Let the people be governed by a government of their choosing in their perfect will.