·       Since 2002, Zimbabwe never recorded an undisputed election

·       During the Mugabe era, results were delayed by more than a month

·       ZEC is yet to release the voter’s roll

Harare- President for the Republic of Zimbabwe, Cde Emmerson Mnangagwa has assured the business community and the citizens that peace will prevail in the upcoming elections amid fears of a possible violence as per the tradition of the country’s elections. The President also recommended the citizens, civil societies and political parties to keep peace abreast and vowed to ensure that to come a living reality.

Addressing people in Kwekwe and a conference held in Harare which was organised by the Confederation of Zimbabwe Retailers dubbed “ED Mnangagwa Business Summit”, the President assured both the citizens and business community of a violent deficit election while recommending their cooperation in keeping peace and stability for a credible and fair 2023 election outcome.

Addressing in Kwekwe, Mnangagwa said, “We should campaign peacefully and leave those with different views to do so peacefully. We should be a peaceful nation and we should prove this in the way we conduct ourselves in this coming election.”

Assuring the business community, he said, “My government wishes to assure businesses and investors that measures are in place to guarantee the security of persons and property during the election season. May you as the business community complement these efforts by fostering peace, love and tolerance.”

Since post-independence, Zimbabwe has never had a violence-free election which was credible and undisputed. In the latest 2018 election, six people were killed by the army while properties were vandalised.

The President is cognisant that a peaceful and undisputed election is key to unlocking the Western re-engagement and engagement efforts which the Second Republic had been trying to do since 2018. During the five-year term that will expire this year, all the government’s efforts ended in vain. To boost economic viability, the government ended up ululating memorandums with the likes of Iran and Belarus, states known to have a raindrop effect as far as resuscitating the dire Zimbabwean economy is concerned.

If what the President is saying is real and not just rhetoric, it means the country is going to witness a busload of reforms from the media, political and economic fields for a fair-ground election tussle. This will also be the first peaceful and credible election since the Presidential election of 2002 to the latest held in 2018.  Zimbabwe’s record of violent elections especially towards opposition voices has welcomed a bag of international denunciation leading to isolation. Due to the abuse of human rights, the United States of America imposed sanctions dubbed ZIDERA on Zimbabwe something that the Second Republic has been trying to fight since 2018 but ended in vain. A peaceful, non-violent election as the president said might be the last escape route left for the government to fit the global risk index.

A Track Down of Zimbabwe’s Elections Since 2000

With the birth of the first opposition party in 1997, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) led by the late Mr Morgan Tsvangirai, an election to choose parliamentarians was held in 2000. The election coincided with the land appropriation programme which saw a violent takeover of white farmers by the war veterans hence, it succumbed to violence.  The opposition won 57 of the 120 seats with 47% of the popular vote with ZANU-PF grabbing the lion’s share with 63 seats.

With stiff resistance mooing against ZANU-PF from the newly formed opposition party, to buttress its power and suppress opposition voices, the government readopted the anachronistic and draconian laws used by the colonial governments to thwart freedoms namely, AIPPA and POSA.

Due to these laws, the first post-independence presidential election contested by the sons of soil was very violent with a number of arrests and intimidations which targeted mainly the opposing supporters.  Consequently, irregularities were raised over the elections with allegations of rigging, murder, rape, fraud, intimidation and violence by parties that contested in the elections. Though the African Union (AU) described the election as “transparent, credible, free and fair,” the conduct of the election was strongly condemned by the Commonwealth, Norwegian observers, Zimbabwean opposition figures, and Western governments and media. According to BBC and the Norwegian observers, the election marked the consolidation of totalitarianism and the thickening of intolerance through courts, military and media capture by the ruling party. The then president, Robert Mugabe won by 56.2% ahead of his main rival, Morgan Tsvangirai who trailed at 42%. As noted by Professor Jonathan Moyo, the former Minister of Information and Publicity in Mugabe’s government, the incumbent used the military, national intelligence, police forces, government ministries and departments and traditional chiefs to win the election.

However, with sanctions imposed on the government, Zimbabwe lost a handful of investments, food scarcity, high inflation and a worrisome global risk index.

 The next presidential election was held in 2008 amid shortages of basic goods. People were queueing for basics like sugar, cooking oil and mealie-meal while inflation hovered over 1000%. A third opposing force which stood as an independent candidate, Simba Makoni joined the presidential race.  However, reports of results fixing and rigging by the ruling party shoot through the roof. The reports were later proven by the delay in the publishing of the election results. Nearly a month passed before results were announced which prompted the MDC, the main opposition of the time to seek an order from the High Court to force their release. However, due to the courts capture, and selective application of the law, the challenge was unsuccessful.

However, after a month, the results were announced and none of the contested candidates garnered a majority vote prompting a re-run. The 2008’s presidential re-run was the worst record violent election in post-independence Zimbabwean history where people’s hands, heads and legs were chopped for supporting the other party. The opposition, which had no state security support suffered heavily. Tsvangirai withdrew from the second round a week before it was scheduled to take place, citing violence against his party’s supporters. The re-run, however, proceeded despite widespread condemnation from the opposition powers and the Western world. Mugabe finally won by a resounding 90.22% against 9.78% from Tsvangirai.

According to research conducted by the Zimbabwe Election Support Network (http://bitly.ws/BokR), circa one-third of Zimbabwe's registered voters for the 2008 election were dead, and others appeared to be babies or up to 120 years old in a country where life expectancy is scarcely 60 years with more than 500 dead voters given the same birth date January 1, 1901. Also, there were more than 185,000 cases of the same voters listed in two or more voting constituencies during the 2008 elections.

However, faced with a widely condemned election victory, a parliament without a two-thirds majority of his ZANU-PF, and a broadly recognised first-round result in which Tsvangirai was leading, Mugabe found himself with no choice but to accept the regional and international community’s suggestions for a negotiated political settlement that resulted in a government of national unity, with Tsvangirai given the Prime Ministerial role.

The last election under the First Republic was held in 2013. Also, this marked the first election held under a new constitution, which was approved in a referendum in March 2013. The main candidates were Robert Mugabe and his arch-rival Morgan Tsvangirai. Once again, Robert Mugabe won resoundingly. However, despite Tsvangirai conceding defeat, the vote was grossly biased. It was one of the worst grossly biased elections with the worst vote-fixing stats.

 ZESN’s 7 000 monitors listed a busload of shortfalls including state media bias which is still alive to date, a campaign of intimidation in rural areas, and the rushed electoral process before key reforms to the security services were in place.

The voter’s roll was held back until the day before the election to avoid scrutiny and thereafter, the electoral rolls revealed an estimated one million invalid names, including many deceased voters. It excluded up to one million real ones, mostly in urban areas where MDC support was firm.

ZEC later reported that approximately 305 000 voters were turned away from polls, with an additional 207 000 voters being "assisted" in casting their ballots. There were more than 100 000 centenarian ghost voters on the electoral roll. On 9 August 2013, the Movement for Democratic Change sought to have the results nullified but withdrew their petition a week later. Despite this, the Supreme Court of Zimbabwe ruled that the election was "free, fair and credible". The Western monitors were not allowed while African Union declared the vote valid and credible.

The court system has never worked in Zimbabwe for the plaintiff since independence.

However, Mkhululi Nyathi of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission resigned on the day of the elections and was on record saying, "I do not wish to enumerate the many reasons for my resignation, but they all have to do with the manner the Zimbabwe 2013 harmonised elections were proclaimed and conducted.”

In 2018 after the demise of Robert Mugabe, people were very pessimistic about a peaceful, free and fair election under Mnangagwa. 2018 was the first Zimbabwean election held post-Mugabe and Tsvangirai era following a coup that removed the long-serving president from power since Zimbabwe gained independence in 1980 and a serious colon cancer that claimed the latter’s life in South Africa.  New arch-rivals emerged, Emmerson Mnangagwa leading the ZANU-PF pack and Nelson Chamisa leading the MDC-Alliance ticket.  There was a lot of optimism for a better election atmosphere which was not rigged or politically influenced.

Also, for the first time in Zimbabwe’s history, the country had 21 Presidential candidates. However, the election was highly contested between Emmerson Mnangagwa who received 2,460,463 votes, which translated to 50.8% of the overall votes and Nelson Chamisa of the MDC-Alliance who received 2,147,436 votes which translated to 44.3% of the total votes.

Elections were held on the 31st of July but the election results were delayed by three days for unknown reasons. The opposition parties alleged that it was motivated by the desire to rig and took to the streets. However, the demonstrations claimed six lives and vandalism on the property as soldiers opened live bullets against unarmed citizens to suppress protesters. Interestingly, none from the government accepted responsibility for deploying troops in the streets with a shooting order.

More than 50% of the electorates, including arch-rival, Nelson Chamisa refused to ratify the results as credible. The opposition parties alleged that the results were not verified and that Priscila Chigumba, the ZEC chairperson manipulated the outcome in favour of Mnangagwa. Chamisa challenged the outcome in the constitutional court but, to no avail

However, President Mnangagwa set up a commission, Motlanthe to deliberate on the post elections violence. Besides the commission bringing fruitful and reliable results, none of the culprits including the troops who shot dead the unarmed citizens was brought to justice.

Will Peace and Credible Elections prevail in 2023?

It is still debatable whether a peaceful and credible election will be carried out this year. This demands a lot of reforms which I fear the current regime is not in bed with. A peaceful credible election entails media reforms where the national broadcaster, ZBC will provide equal platforms of engagement for both the ruling party and opposition parties while the police and courts do their operations impartially without being partisan.

Also, the continuing of Priscilla Chigumba, an alleged biased referee by the opposition is going to discredit any outcome that is in favour of ZANU-PF despite being fair or otherwise. There is a need for a more trusted and reliable referee by all parties. Chigumba was recently at loggerheads with the main opposition party, CCC over the withholding of the Voters’ roll. All these will be used as a fighting stick by the opposition if by any chance ZANU-PF retains the highest seat in the country this year.

Besides, since 2018 to date, opposition party rallies have met stiff resistance from the police while its members faced an onslaught from the courts as they were denied bail and are still over unproven allegations. The continued onslaught on the opposition party’s rallies and members will remove any credibility from the upcoming 2023 elections. 

During the latest by-elections held in 2022, CCC rallies faced an onslaught from the police over unclear reasons including lack of manpower from police and occupation of sites by ZANU-PF members. ZANU-PF was, however, allowed to gather without hindrance throughout the campaign period. In this year in February alone, four CCC rallies were banned while ZANU-PF carried its own fluently. However, if the onslaught against the opposition propels in the remaining months to elections, the vote’s outcome will be disputed.

Our Analysis

It is worrisome to note that Zimbabwe never experienced the taste of a credible, undisputed election since 2000. The security personnel and the courts of law played a fundamental role in keeping the ruling party ahead of the main opposing parties during elections through partisan arrests, selective banning of political rallies, intimidation and issuing of threats on opposition voices. Most of the issues were highlighted in the Motlanthe Commission’s report. Police and the army had been used to crush and squash opposition voices with selective application of the law.

On the other hand, besides being a national broadcaster, ZBC continued annihilating opposition candidates in terms of representation. It remained a key tool for propagating the state’s interests to targeted audiences while other parties never enjoyed the same privileges.

There has been a serious delay in the release of the voter's roll for public scrutiny since the 2002 election to date. A voter’s roll helps to plan an election and expose any fraud as it tells how many voters to expect in each voting district and constituency. Due to the withholding of the voter's roll in the yester election years, more than half a million votes were not credible.

No clear reasons were given as to why the election results were delayed by more than a month in 2008 and by more than 3 days in 2018 as well as why the voter’s roll was released at a later date.

The above were some of the key fundamental issues that discredited the yesteryear elections as neither free nor fair. If the 2023 election is to be credited, there is a need to address these key issues by the government. It's never too late until it's late.

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