Things to watch out for post-July 31

Tichaona Zindoga
IF one were to take the ongoing electoral process in Zimbabwe as a story, it would be described thus: the story has gone past the exposition stage and now is in its final development towards climax and resolution.The story will conceivably have a double climax — the actual voting on July 31, and the announcement of the results, which will take place, we are told, within five days.

It remains to pan out which of the two climaxes will be more intense, more earth-shattering.
And what will happen during the two climaxes, particularly the second one, will define how Zimbabwe will move on: will Zimbabwe, Kenya-style descend into anarchy and chaos, or there will be a smooth transition from the inclusive Government?

Quintessentially, there are certain things that stakeholders in the Zimbabwe story will have to watch out post-July-31, especially in the now highly likely event that Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC lose the national elections.

These scenarios can be read from the cumulative narrative momentum of the past few days and weeks, and the last elections in 2008.

The legitimacy question

For every election, the question of legitimacy is penultimate, and non negotiable.
In fact, the purpose of holding an election is to have legitimate authorities chosen by, and to govern people.

An MDC-T that is fearing defeat in the forthcoming poll has been trying to rob the poll and its likely winners — Zanu-PF and President Mugabe — of its legitimacy even before the poll has even be held.

It can be safely assumed that MDC-T and its backers will dispute the election result that does not favour them.
Not that there is anything unusual about it.

They have been preparing the ground for it, for all to see.
There are several aspects of this stratagem and these include, inter alia, mischievous and misplaced concerns over the voters roll and ballot papers, voting patterns and turnout as well as the announcement of the results both in timing and conduct.

Some of these aspects can be read from Tsvangirai’s Press statement five days before the crucial plebiscite.
He claimed he was participating in the elections “with a heavy heart” because some reforms have not been implemented “while the regional body’s resolutions meant to create an environment for a credible election have been completely ignored.”

While people might have thought he had accepted the very date of July as D-day, Tsvangirai still reposes with the discredited misgivings of the polling date.

He complained that, “the very limited time between the declaration of the election and the polling day has caused chaos in ZEC’s election preparations, affecting the credibility of the process.”

“The guarantors of the GPA, Sadc had said the election date should be pushed back to allow for proper preparations for the elections, including the implementation of agreed issues which affect the environment ahead of the election.”

He harped on about the so-called reforms of the security sector and the media, despite the fact that these were unable to be effected in five days before the polls and that the issues had been dealt with in the new constitution that he so much likes to take credit.

Tsvangirai and his party are likely to take issue with what he claims to be the disenfranchisement of a lot of people.
Tsvangirai claims that, “disenfranchising people is one of the oldest and most crude forms of election manipulation”.

He goes further to claim that he pleaded, to no avail, with the Zimbabwe electoral Commission, to allow people more time to register “but ZEC ignored our plea . . . behalf of the people of Zimbabwe.”

Logistically, Tsvangirai tries to extrapolate the challenges that the special voting — not without the proven hand of his party — posing that national polls will be disastrous.

MDC also makes issue with the voters roll, claiming, incredibly for a whole Prime Minister in the last five years that, “with five days to go to the election, this country does not have a credible and transparent voters’ roll.”

The punchline being: “The lack of a transparent voters’ roll is the biggest issue impacting negatively on the credibility and legitimacy of this election.”

On ballot papers, Tsvangirai again accuses ZEC of refusing MDC-T requests to information.
And when the vote count comes which does not favour the MDC-T comes the party will likely also question the material counting of the ballots and stack it onto the above concerns.

They have already been talking about rigging of the vote.
Observers and all bona-fide authorities need to see through this intricate pre-emption and deception by the MDC-T and not kowtow to its loser’s whims post July-31.

Announcement of results

A brief analogy will suffice here. In the last elections in 2008, this writer was at Makumbe Business Centre, 45km north east of Harare, itself then an MDC stronghold of some kind.

Before the official results were out, MDC functionaries and supporters were feeding themselves pre-mature results, even of the presidential poll.
These announcements proclaimed a win for their party and soon enough a crowd of MDC supporters — there was also Tsvangirai’s spokesperson, then MDC-T director of information Luke Tamborinyoka — were singing and celebrating.

A teacher from the mission school donated a goat for the festivity.
It only turned out the results were premature and unofficial, and MDC-T had not won by the landslide these people were celebrating.

Such a situation can only turn riotous — thankfully it did not at Makumbe that day — as politicians take advantage of crowds in false street celebrations and turn them into riots over supposed stolen elections.

MDC-T has its eye on this and Tsvangirai and Biti have been touting that they will announce the results of their party.
And tellingly, it was in Domboshava recently that Tsvangirai repeated this adding that he did not care for the electoral laws because he would not be arrested as he thought that in the ensuing chaos he would somehow find himself a president of this country.

This will be one of the gravest things to watch out for both materially and qualitatively post July 31.
MDC-T will definitely play dirty and nobody should be fooled.

The party will seek to mobilise violence and hooliganism and engage in provocative actions to taint not only the vote but render the whole process unmanageable.

Role of media, social media and telecommunications

Mass mobilisation via the social networking sites, the internet and telecommunications is in vogue with 21st century pseudo-revolutions, and MDC-T will likely engage in it, as happened in the so-called Arab Spring, which has turned out to be so disastrous.

Already, MDC-T has a strong presence on the Internet and social networking sites and these platforms are likely to be abused to foment unrest in the very likely event that the party loses the poll.

In the previous election, Zimbabweans were bombarded with unsolicited MDC SMSES.
These could be deployed once again, even though Potraz has outlawed them ahead of elections.

In short, some mindless jerks behind computers and not so smart phones may precipitate mindless and riotous behaviour, especially if crowds are captive.

How will authorities deal with this?
How will stakeholders view such manipulations?
This is where the aspect of the journalistic media comes into play.

What role will they play in these elections?
There were worries over the distribution of radio sets for the reception of pirate broadcasts from outside the country.

The worry cannot be weightier given the power of the media.
And some international media outlets will likely render legitimacy, as they have always done, to MDC-T, even when the party is offside.

They are likely to in an effort to aid regime change to MDC-T.
Some of these media houses are known to be so enamoured of crises and blood and war, they might already be looking forward for a prolonged stay in Zimbabwe.

They are likely to broadcast crisis in Zimbabwe: and this is a known trait.
How will authorities, natural and electoral, deal with this?

Embassies and observer missions

What will happen post-July 31 will also depend on how observer missions and embassies have been reading the situation in Zimbabwe and how they will see it after the polls.

How, for example, have they taken MDC-T’s pre-emptive statements and the apparent priming of its own loss, albeit with consequences?
What standards is Zimbabwe held to?

Zimbabwe is a mature democracy that has held regular and credible elections since 1980, becoming about the only African country to do so on a continent riven by coups and other undemocratic regime changes.

Zimbabwe was the first — and perhaps only — country to implement the Sadc principles and guidelines governing democratic elections.
It is under these conditions, and even improved as demanded by the parties in Zimbabwe, that MDC-T won a one-seat majority in 2008.

How do the foreign missions relate to these facts, and how do they take the pre-emptive de-legitimation of the process?
Zimbabwe has largely shut out hostile western observer missions, but the issue is more complex as these hostile forces can simply use local proxies.

What will be the role of these institutions?

Zimbabwe will have to watch and weigh every word and nuance from the international community, progressive and otherwise — the latter for hostile western regime change mongering countries.

And we are also likely to see Tsvangirai globe-trotting and engaging in diplomatic manoeuvring.
Just how much will sane people around the world listen to a man that has been forecasting his own defeat?

Court actions

The courts have become one of the MDC-T’s favourite hunting grounds.
The party has been using the courts not only to hold up the electoral process, but also to bring attention on itself.

The strategy is likely to obtain again, from vexatious 11th hour court applications to challenges of results.
Some are saying, the MDC-T is already preparing to challenge the results in court.

It cannot get truer, not least as the bane of African politics.
Yet is it not known that MDC-T approaches the courts with dirty hands?

Tsvangirai is still bitter about May 30 and has not made a secret of it, yet he will approach the very same courts that he has been impugning and condemning.

It is a shameful grotesque.
Yet, these will have to be borne, ridden out.
Over and above the above enumerations, it will also be important to note that throughout, the MDC-T will want to parade itself as a victim.
It is simply not.

Or is it an innocent bystander.
The MDCs have been in government for the past five years and some the conditions and aspects that Tsvangirai has been complaining about he should have tackled as the Prime Minister.

As a party with many lawyers the MDC-T should also used its time in Parliament and executive to effect changes legal or otherwise.
Was the party napping, for which nobody should be blamed, as indeed if they were out-manoeuvred by their Zanu-PF rivals in the same?