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Tongai Dana
Correspondent
Competitive multi-party elections have become the only legitimate channel for any regime to ascend into power.
The quality of the elections in terms of peacefulness, freeness and fairness has become a litmus test of whether a country is considered democratic or not.
Elections are an important mechanism in democratic and peace processes.
All political parties and presidential candidates should therefore ensure to provide citizens with an opportunity to choose freely their political leaders and allocate power peacefully.
All political parties and presidential candidates who participate in elections have a central responsibility of maintaining peace in their conduct, speech and internal political party processes to ensure the conduct of peaceful elections.
There are number of ways in which political parties and presidential candidates can work to ensure that the Zimbabwean harmonised elections which have August 23 as the vote casting day are peaceful. Following are some of such ways:
- Political parties and presidential candidates should publicly commit to peaceful conduct during the election period. They should denounce violence and refrain from using inflammatory language that could incite violence. They should also encourage their supporters to respect the rule of law and to refrain from any acts of violence or intimidation.
- Political parties and presidential candidates should encourage peaceful campaigning by their supporters. They should discourage any acts of violence or intimidation and promote civil discourse and respectful debate. They should focus on discussing issues and presenting their platforms instead of engaging in personal attacks or inciting hatred.
- Political parties and presidential candidates should promote voter education to ensure that voters are informed about the electoral process and their rights and responsibilities. This can help to prevent confusion and misunderstandings that could lead to violence.
In all the above factors, the Presidential candidate for the ZANU PF party, President Mnangagwa has been above board. He has proved to be a peaceful leader who listens attentively to his people and communicates authentically, actively, and effectively.
President Mnangagwa has held himself accountable to the people of Zimbabwe as a peace warrior.
The people of Zimbabwe have been praying for peace.
Many prayer events were conducted by Zimbabweans from across church denominations, the clamour for peace made our people join hands.
Peace is all that Zimbabweans have been asking for in the 2023 harmonised elections.
The President listened and has been acting on God’s answer of peace to the Zimbabweans. Peace is one of the major characteristics of the 2023 harmonised election processes.
The President has proven to be a standout peace pathfinder who knows the way, guides the way, and walks the way. In this election, President Mnangagwa has displayed his passion and courage to stand as unyielding foot soldier in the unceasing battle for peace.
In all his engagements even before elections, he has always been heralding the peace message.
It is now a culture; it is not possible for him to finish a speech without talking of peace.
The President is on record encouraging ZANU PF members and all Zimbabwean citizens across political affiliations to be peaceful and desist from violence, his message as a messenger of peace, has been that, a country is not built with quarrelling and fighting but peace and unity.
Under his driver-ship, the Second Republic mandate has been of peace, development and democracy promotion.
The peaceful environment we have seen and continue to see in the 2023 harmonised election processes speaks to this fact.
Like Nelson Mandela, the first black president of South Africa who played a key role in promoting peaceful and democratic elections in South Africa in 1994, President Mnangagwa has been on record encouraging all Zimbabweans to participate in the election process peacefully.
He says voting does not hurt and neither is it tiresome. Like Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first female president of Liberia who worked to promote peaceful and democratic elections in Liberia in 2005 and 2011, President Mnangagwa has encouraged all parties to respect the results of the election in come August 23.
President Mnangagwa has relentlessly driven the peace process forward and keeps it alive despite consistent disappointments along the way.
We can agree that, in elections which are a high-stake competition, underlying tensions are bound to happen and can also result in violence here and there.
However, the ZANU PF Presidential candidate has continued to preach the gospel of peace.
Furthermore, political parties and presidential candidates should respect the rule of law and encourage their supporters to do the same.
In this area we have seen, the ruling party patching all gaps to conduct itself in compliance with national electoral laws and regulations.
Opposition parties have been found wanting in cases where electoral laws were breached, especially on issues to do with notifying and working with the law enforcement agents before and during campaign rallies.
The law enforcement agents and the courts have been swift in addressing such.
Dialogue and co-operation is the other way in which political parties and presidential candidates can contribute to ensuring the conduct of peaceful elections.
They should engage in dialogue and co-operation with each other and with the electoral commission to address any concerns or grievances related to the election process and to promote transparency and accountability if peaceful and fair elections are to be achieved.
With regards to this, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) has established an all-stakeholders consultation forum which consists of not just political parties but the media, specific Chapter 12 Commissions, the security sector and Civil Society Organisations among others.
A number of engagements have been done where stakeholders raised concerns and observable steps were made to resolve them.
Another important issue is acceptance of election results. Political parties and presidential candidates should accept the election results even if they lose and encourage their supporters to do the same, respect the will of the majority. Above all that is all there is to democracy, the will of the majority.
Those who lose or are in the minority should accept and refrain from making unfounded claims of fraud or irregularities that could undermine confidence in the electoral process.
This will not undermine just the election process but may cause serious development challenges which affects all Zimbabweans and not specific political party, members or supporters.
Losing hurts but not accepting the results is bad for the country’s development.
Post elections, let us congratulate the winners, join hands and support each other to build our country.
Peter Tanyanyiwa
Online Reporter