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Herbert Zharare Political Editor
British Ambassador to Zimbabwe Ms Deborah Bronnert has been exposed for attempting to discredit the just-ended harmonised elections by peddling lies that over 10 000 people were assisted to vote in one parliamentary constituency, claims that have been latched onto by MDC-T leader Mr Morgan Tsvangirai in his attempt to have the courts deodorise his ‘‘null and void’’ refrain.
In an interview with Sky TV on August 4 after the plebiscite that saw President Mugabe romping to victory by garnering 61.09 percent of the valid vote compared to MDC-T leader Mr Morgan Tsvangirai’s 33 percent, Ms Bronnert parroted MDC-T’s position that the polls were not held under free and fair conditions.
This is, besides the fact that the UN, AU, Sadc, Comesa, ACP, 22 AU member-states, among them 11 drawn from Sadc; eight Asian states, five Middle Eastern countries, two European states, and five South American countries have all endorsed the elections as free, fair and credible.
“One is where 17 000 people voted, 10 000 were assisted to vote which means somebody else went into the voting booth, raising serious issues on the security and secrecy of the vote. So these were not just our concerns, they were listed by the AU and by Sadc.
“They will be coming up with their final reports in a few weeks time and we are all looking at evidence from domestic observers who were raising some very significant concerns about the conduct of the elections,” said Ms Bronnert.
However, the ambassador admitted in the same interview that no one was intimidated during the voting process.
Ms Bronnert was among many Western diplomats that attended MDC-T’s Press conference where Mr Tsvangirai said the polls were a “farce” and that his party was contesting the results in the Constitutional Court as well as putting Zanu-PF under international pressure.
“We commended the Zimbabwean people on the fact that the election was peaceful and that very important, particularly in the context of the 2008 election, the second round where a couple of hundreds of people were killed and many others injured.”
However, Justice and Legal Affairs Minister Patrick Chinamasa yesterday dismissed Mrs Bronnert’s statement, adding it was impossible for over 10 000 people to be assisted to vote in one parliamentary constituency.
“Assuming that 10 000 voters were assisted to vote as being alleged out of 17 000 people who voted in that constituency and assuming that it would take five minutes to assist one voter, it would take 30 days to complete the voting process (in that constituency).
“Who ever made these lies never thought that it is impossible to assist 10 000 people to vote in one constituency.
“In fact, my calculation tells me that it would take between 34 and 35 days to process that number,” he said.
Zimbabwe Electoral Commission chief elections officer Mr Lovemore Sekeramayi yesterday said it was unfortunate that the ambassador rushed to make the statement before seeking clarification with the electoral body mandated to manage elections in Zimbabwe.
“The ambassador at least should have given us specific information of the constituency to enable us to give a fair response,” he said, adding that all diplomats accredited were allowed to observe the electoral process until the announcement of the results.
However, the number of assisted voters and those turned away during the July 31 harmonised elections are so insignificant that Mr Tsvangirai would still have lost to President Mugabe by a wide margin even if the people he claimed to be his had voted for him.
Mr Tsvangirai is making wild claims that a huge number of people were disenfranchised of their right to vote after they were turned away, while he also claimed many more were assisted to vote, but without giving official figures.
He further made unsubstantiated claims that President Mugabe’s victory was helped by assisted voters whom he alleged were forced to vote for Zanu-PF despite the presence of electoral agents from his party at every polling station, the same accusation Ms Bronnert is raining.
Contrary to MDC-T claims that over 700 000 voters were turned away in Harare alone, figures from ZEC show that only 304 890 were turned away for various reasons countrywide, while 206 901 were assisted to vote.
Assuming that assisted voters and those turned away were going to vote for Mr Tsvangirai, the outgoing Prime Minister would still have lost dismally to President Mugabe.
The combined figure of assisted voters and those who were turned away translated to 511 791, which is not enough to overturn President Mugabe’s bullish victory if added to Mr Tsvangirai’s tally.
The MDC-T leader polled 1 172 349 votes and if the assisted votes and those turned away were to be added to his initial votes, he would get 1 684 140.
President Mugabe would be left with 1 903 533 votes if the number of assisted votes was to be subtracted from his 2 110 434.
His traditional allies, the British through their official media, have since advised that no challenge would overturn President Mugabe’s victory.
Online Reporter