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Itayi Garande
MANY “human rights activists”, political commentators and opinion makers have vaulted from obscurity to fame in the past few days claiming the election results in Zimbabwe were rigged. For the first time we hear that Zanu-PF was very slick in rigging, claims that have never surfaced before. Prior to the elections, these people were mis-predicting that Zanu-PF would rig through violence. There was none.
The final outcome showed turnout forecasts made by the mainstream polls to be accurate.
These were ignored by all these so-called commentators and public intellectuals. This was deliberate. There is hardly any election, in which the West has a significant stake, where the electoral defeat of their preferred candidate is not denounced as illegitimate by the entire political and mass media elite.
Almost the entire spectrum of Western opinion makers, including all the major electronic and print media, the major liberal, radical, libertarian and conservative web-sites, echoed the MDC-T’s claim of rampant election fraud. This is an organised reaction. Nothing new there.
Western leaders, and their scholars and “intellectuals” dotted within Zimbabwe and its environs, rejected the results because they “knew” that their preferred candidate could not lose. Paradoxically, Western commentators (left, right and centre) who bought into the electoral fraud hoax are inadvertently providing in their newspapers every reason why Tsvangirai and the MDC-T lost the election, and it is based on the party’s unpreparedness and lack of leadership qualities.
The narrative that “We will be guided by Sadc and AU” was a hoax, or was based on the hope that the political process would be so poisoned and tainted such that these organisations would declare the elections null and void, ahead of the Western declaration. But the process was free, credible and peaceful. Now they hold onto the word “fair” to declare the entire process a nullity. What is fair in life?
For the MDC-T, unfortunately, this project is too big for them. It is not entirely theirs, but someone else’s. They can be changed; the project will remain the same. The big picture is too big for them to see.
Innocently, they say something about the official numbers “just didn’t add up” and were forced to draw the only obvious conclusion: there was rigging. “This was the mother of all rigging, we didn’t see it coming”.
They are not sure how Zanu-PF managed to steal a national election, but they are confident it is capable of such a feat, confident enough to mount a challenge in court, while asking for information to prove it from the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, which has declared the same election as fool-proof. What a paradox. Zanu-PF rigged and the evidence is that they are capable of it. Stealing an election is more like stacking a deck of cards where a devious sleight of hand ensures that the same party wins every time.
The relevant question, then, is whether the numerous problems people had in registering and casting their ballots constitutes a “stacking of the political deck”. If so, there should be no doubt in anybody’s mind that the country has just gone through a stolen election.
It’s often said that shocking events can deliver quite a jolt to people’s habitual ways of being in the world, for example being sentenced to hang concentrates the mind wonderfully. So why does losing an election, in itself quite a disheartening thing, (even when the conditions for it have been present all along), not allow the MDC-T leadership to sit down and re-strategise for next time? There was Plan B, and Plan B is in action.
Events in Zimbabwe on Wednesday July 31 2013 point to something very sinister. Something must have triggered the panic in Tsvangirai’s camp to make their claim that the election was null and void, before the official results had even been announced by the Zimbabwe Election Commission. On the morning of the Election Day, Tsvangirai had predicted his party would win “quite resoundingly, I must say”. Sounding confident and upbeat, he had added: “This is a very historic moment for all of us . . . finally Zimbabwe will be able to move on again”.
What transpired on the night of July 31 after the closing of the polling and the time of the press conference on Thursday August 1?
One has to look back at the political discussions that were taking place prior to the polling date. Both Tsvangirai and his party’s secretary general Tendai Biti had previously threatened to announce election results at Stewart Room, Meikles Hotel before ZEC’s official announcement. The room as I understand was already booked for Thursday morning. Biti had even predicted what he would say at the announcement — that Tsvangirai, will have won the presidency by 70 percent of the vote.
That announcement never came because something went horribly wrong the night of July 31 or the wee hours of August 1. The tallies from the Parallel Voter Tabulation System used by the MDC-T did not show a 70 percent win or anything close to that, but a disastrous defeat for Tsvangirai and MDC-T candidates at both parliamentary and local elections. The data gathering network that had been put in place to filter results to the MDC-T nerve centre were very effective, but only in delivering disaster.
Those of us who were glued online — on social networks, especially — saw the results filtering through MDC-T supporters’ Facebook and Twitter pages. The interesting observation was that the results were showing disaster throughout, especially in urban constituencies. Tsvangirai was losing, and all sorts of comments were flying around.
“When completely tallied, we will win. Wananchis stay hopeful,” read one Facebook post.
“Please people, don’t panic, this is just the beginning.”
As the night turned into morning, it was clear that the MDC-T was losing, and it was its publicity machinery that was the bearer of the bad news, feeding it to Tsvangirai.
I’m sure Tsvangirai and Biti, who were readying for the 70 percent win announcement the following day were also awake, analysing results from the Parallel Voter Tabulation System. On noticing that they were poised for a crushing defeat, they must have moved to Plan B — discredit the election process, and get all supporters — individuals and organisations — to move to Plan B. The Zimbabwe Election Support Network, a USAID/IRI sponsored appendage of the MDC-T was to later condemn the election process as farcical, on the same day, when it was clear no “resounding success” was coming for Tsvangirai. It was “a historic moment”, but for Zanu-PF, not MDC-T.
The plan to discredit the elections was always the trump card if the MDC-T was losing. They prepared the ground work way before July 31, saying on one hand they did not want to contest a flawed election, but mobilising their people to vote, even going as far as to have the primaries two weeks ahead of Zanu-PF and star rallies a week ahead. US$4 million had been poured into ZESN by the Fishmongers Group — comprised of EU, Australia, Canada and Japan embassies in Zimbabwe.
Furthermore, USAID availed US$3 million to ZESN, Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition and Election Resource Centre to monitor the elections. That could not have been done by a party and partners that did not want elections contested on the basis of an uneven playing field. They were creating the uneven field, in case Zanu-PF won.
The excuse by the MDC-T that their supporters forced them into an election was flimsy, derogatory and disrespectful. They were telling people that they wanted elections delayed, at the same time asking them to vote in MDC-T primaries and register to vote. If their supporters told them to contest, why did they challenge the July 31 date at the Constitutional Court and at the Sadc summit in Maputo, against the wishes of their supporters? Why were they were also hatching “grand coalitions” without the mandate of their congress, arrogantly imposing candidates from other political parties, eg Simba Makoni and Reketayi Semwayo if they respected their supporters?
“I was sent by the national standing committee of my party to negotiate with other political parties so that we don’t make the same mistake of splitting votes like what we did in 2008,” said Tsvangirai, as if the standing committee was equivalent to the party’s supporters.
He continued; “As MDC, we can have the majority or even have 60 percent of the votes, but it’s not bad to have 70 percent through this coalition. We talked to the parties and we will share the posts after winning the elections.”
The irony is that it was President Mugabe who was to get the 60 percent without a grand coalition. Tsvangirai only needed 51 percent, so why did he bother forming a grand coalition if he knew he had the requisite margin already. The truth is that the MDC-T were ill-prepared and underfunded and they knew they were losing the elections.
These mixed messages and total arrogance by the MDC-T leadership confused and frustrated their supporters, and the total disdain for their supporters’ wishes estranged them from the MDC-T. Many of them defected to Zanu-PF openly and covertly, or simply became apathetic and stayed away from the elections.
The MDC-T leadership was also using very abstract reasons for delaying elections: media reform and security sector reform — without clear articulation of these policy alternatives. No policy documents were submitted for these media and security sector reforms and the issues were not even in their JUICE manifesto.
These issues were not even highlighted by the MDC-T during the constitution-making exercise and in the new Constitution which had been approved in a referendum on March 17 2013. The MDC-T launched a “Yes Campaign” for the new Constitution well ahead of Zanu-PF, but they never thought of including so-called media and security sector reforms in that Constitution. Imagine what would have happened if the Patriotic Front leaders, Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo had walked away from the Lancaster House Constitutional Conference in 1979 without getting an agreement on the land issue.
Thus one can deduce that these abstract issues now reintroduced after a dismal election loss are a deflection. They are part of a well-calculated and well-hatched plan by the MDC-T to demand the impossible and thereby poison the political space. The plan is to discredit any process that does not lead to an MDC-T win and use that as a trump card to woo the West into declaring the political situation not conducive for democratic participation. Bennett’s call for an insurrection against a Zanu-PF government is in line with this strategy, but that is too little, too late. The MDC-T is not as popular as it was in 2007/8 anymore.
This is the reality that faces the MDC-T now. Otherwise how does one explain the fact that Biti, unlike in 2008, has failed to call his own press conference to announce the 70 percent win, or any win for the MDC-T. His 2008 bravado has been replaced by despondency and dejection as the reality of losing popularity sets in. The MDC-T claims that Tsvangirai won the election, but cannot even come up with any figures to support that claim. In 2008, they said they had tallied 50.8 percent for Tsvangirai. Even though it was wrong, they had some basis for their claim, having worked in cahoots with ZESN to massage the figures. This time even ZESN is confounded by Zanu-PF’s monumental win. They don’t even have a figure for Tsvangirai, yet they claim to have figures of voters turned away, voters bused, and extra ballots printed, not spoilt. Why did they concentrate on those issues, and not the ballot itself? How did they get this information?
Was Zanu-PF so complacent in rigging that the process was easy to scrutinise, but were still able to deliver a crushing victory? Before the election, the MDC-T said to the people of Zimbabwe “if you vote in large numbers, it will make it difficult for the junta to rig”. The people did vote in large numbers and made it difficult for anyone for that matter to rig.
Let’s look at how the voting occurred, against the MDC-T claims.
All agents and election observers (national and international) agree that the voting boxes were empty prior to polling. How then did Zanu-PF manage to rig the vote, when the MDC-T had its own polling agents on site, the same agents who were filtering information back to Harvest House for tallying? How would Zanu-PF have rigging machinery or mechanism that would transform an MDC-T vote into a Zanu-PF one on a piece of paper? How many people would Zanu-PF need in order to cast multiple votes to have such a monumental win, and considering that voting took place in one day, in fact less that 12 hours, how could Zanu-PF have done such a sterling job? How could Zanu-PF bus tens of thousands of people and keep them silent about such a fraud? In any case, why would Zanu-PF not give itself more MPs than it did, especially in urban constituencies? Why would it not rig in MDC-T strongholds like Harare?
Couple these questions with the fact that all the results were displayed outside the polling stations immediately after polling, then the puzzle gets even more interesting. There were MDC, MDC-T polling agents and Zanu-PF ones, so how the other ballot papers managed to make their way into the transparent ballot boxes at the time of the voting or counting is a mystery only the MDC-T can solve. If there was electronic voting, as in Kenya, one would have bought in the tampering argument, but that was not the case in this instance. A manual system was used by Zanu-PF, MDC-T and MDC polling agents. The Voters Roll excuse is also flimsy and does not warrant a rerun. Why did they call for a “Yes Vote” to the new Constitution on that same Voters Roll? How does it benefit Zanu-PF and prejudice everybody else?
How Nikuv — the Israeli company accused of rigging the election on behalf of Zanu-PF — would have used a magic wand to transform votes for the MDC-T to Zanu-PF ones is also another mystery.
Whatever the dossier that the MDC-T took to the Constitutional Court will be dismissed with costs. It is a hard case to make because it is tantamount to disenfranchising the entire voting population. Judges are reluctant to get involved in such judicial activism. That’s why the burden of proof is on the plaintiff/claimant (MDC-T) and the standard of proof used in such electoral cases is “beyond reasonable doubt” and the court has to “ensure the timely resolution of electoral disputes”. The reason for this standard is that allegation of electoral fraud is quasi-criminal in nature and must be proved beyond reasonable doubt and not on preponderance of or balance of probabilities, and there is already an election result that should be respected. The result is the Zimbabwean voters’ voice, that should not be suppressed. The MDC-T wants to challenge or unseat that people’s result. They are in fact trying to unseat the voice of the voters. So they have to have a really good reason to do so.
West refuses to acknowledge Zanu-PF win
Western claims that they will not recognise President Mugabe and Zanu-PF’s win because of irregularities amount to hypocrisy, especially knowing what we know about elections in the West. Some of us have been privileged to live in the West and observe how their systems work. They’re not fool proof.
Take the Canadian case of 2011 for example. A federal judge at the time ruled that election fraud had occurred during the May 2011 election. A flawed database had been used, and fraudulent activity had taken place as automated phone calls (robocalls) were used to misdirect voters. Yet even in that case the judge said the evidence did not reach the “beyond reasonable doubt standard” and the case was dismissed, with the judge refusing to annul the results of the election. This was despite the judge’s observation that the electoral fraud “struck at the integrity of the electoral process by attempting to dissuade voters from casting ballots for their preferred candidates.”
Looking at the US, one can see how imperfect elections are. US elections in November 2012 that gave president Obama a second term were fraught with irregularities and allegations of fraud. Despite his popularity, Obama lost in each and every US State where voter ID laws were in place, yet in 59 Philadelphia precincts, Mitt Romney received no votes and Obama received 100% of the votes — or even higher. This fact, alone, should have raised red flags and set off all manner of bells, whistles and sirens. In Florida, where previously Jeb Bush had been accused of rigging the vote against Al Gore, St Lucie County and other counties experienced unprecedented voter fraud, with St. Lucie reporting a 141 percent turnout — which is impossible. In Ohio, Obama “won” the county by 108 percent of registered voters–another impossibility.
In September, 2012 the Columbus Dispatch newspaper in Ohio reported: “More than one out of every five registered Ohio voters is probably ineligible to vote. In two counties, the number of registered voters actually exceeds the voting-age population: North-western Ohio’s Wood County shows 109 registered voters for every 100 eligible, while in Lawrence County along the Ohio River it’s a mere 104 registered per 100 eligible.” Obama won resoundingly in these places.
In Britain, 406 cases of alleged electoral fraud at local government elections were reported by the police in 2012, up from 271 in 2010 and 268 in 2011. Yet the Electoral Commission in Britain declared all elections free, fair and credible and no convictions were ever recorded. Hotspots of election fraud in Britain, where there has been a history of cases of alleged fraud, are: Birmingham, Blackburn with Darwin, Bradford, Burnley, Calderdale, Coventry, Hyndburn, Kirklees, Oldham, Pendle, Peterborough, Slough, Tower Hamlets, Walsall, and Woking. In many of these places, people vote with no ID and there’s no indelible ink, like the pink ink used in Zimbabwe.
I accept the proposition that the result of an election is subject to judicial scrutiny. Indeed, the court has a constitutional responsibility to protect and safeguard the purity of elections. In the same vein, just as the court is bound by the election laws, so too the petitioner in any election petition must strictly adhere to and obey all the requirements of the election laws. It looks as though the 100 separate petitions point to another MDC-T strategy of inundating the court with litigation while buying political time to cause chaos and mayhem, and discredit the process further by creating false stories in the media (Iran-Zim uranium deals, etc). Unless this standard is met, the ZEC decision will not be overturned.
By rushing to the media prematurely as Tsvangirai did on the morning of 1 August, MDC-T ran the risk of making an allegation before gathering the evidence. Therefore the evidence they would use in their case would simply be a rehashing of the issues and arguments made by the leadership in the Press. Those arguments tend to be flimsy. MDC-T must prove that the law was not complied with and also that the failure to comply affected the validity of the election result. That is the legal burden, and nothing we have seen so far can stand this test. That is why the MDC-T front loaded their petition by asking ZEC to release reports of the election process. This is evidence that the MDC-T had no evidence and was fishing for evidence from ZEC.
Further evidence that the MDC-T has no evidence of rigging is that they are also planning on seeking not just legal redress, but also a political solution to the matter.
Why seek a political solution when you have evidence of fraud, a purely legal issue? If they don’t have trust in the Constitutional Court they should ditch it altogether, and go for the political solution. This is another strategy of creating a crisis by predetermining the judgment of the Constitutional Court. In any case, they have already undermined the Constitutional Court (by saying judges are compromised Zanu-PF members), and undermined the regional leaders who accept AU and Sadc positions, so who will offer the political solution?
These leaders take their cue from their election observers’ judgment of the electoral process. One is hard pressed to find out how the MDC-T will resort to those same institutions for political redress. In any case, why wait for the court to deliver a crushing verdict. Surely they should have already engaged Sadc and AU by now with their “evidence”.
Whatever happens, one thing is clear now. There will be casualties in the MDC-T camp, whether they are the new parliamentarians who are eager to serve their country after being elected, or Tsvangirai himself who is neither a Member of Parliament, nor prime minister anymore, but just the leader of a crippled MDC-T.
One sees a new leadership emerging from within the MDC-T from among party members in Parliament. Tsvangirai’s power base has been severely undermined by consecutive losses at the presidential elections, and if he had left some years back, the MDC-T would have been a strong contender to Zanu-PF. This is too late, and even Biti is now embattled, bruised, too brush, and the 2008 bravado has been replaced by stone-faced timidity. The honourable thing to do now for Tsvangirai is to throw in the towel and think of other ways of influencing Zimbabwean politics from behind the scenes. Otherwise events will force him to go dishonourably.
Itayi Garande can be contacted via [email protected]
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