Stolen Elections yet again in Zimbabwe-FRONTLINE FELLOWSHIP-PETER HAMMOND

[Nat Quinn]

Stolen Elections yet again in Zimbabwe

Evaluating the Recent Elections in Zimbabwe and its Implications
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Logistical Failures and Missing Ballots Papers
General elections were held throughout Zimbabwe on 23 and 24 August 2023 for one presidential seat, 210 parliamentary seats and 1,770 council seats to be elected for a five year term. The Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation reported that in 5 wards in Manicaland citizens were not able to vote at all because of logistical difficulties which were faced by the ZEC, including the failure of ballot papers to arrive. Voting in another 35 wards was delayed, 11 of these wards were in the capital of the country, Harare, which is a stronghold for the opposition. This ultimately lead to ZEC declaring 24 August 2023, as an additional voting day. Although, according to Zimbabwean law, voting is required to take place within one day.
There were overnight queues. There were reportedly delays of up to 10 hours in opposition stronghold areas. The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission acknowledged the late distribution of ballot papers at some polling stations and blamed it on printing delays.

Foreign Journalists Banned and Independent Observers Arrested
Most seriously, 41 independent poll monitors /observers were arrested during the election. Numerous accusations of vote rigging were made. There is no way that the recent Zimbabwean elections can be declared free and fair, as confirmed by observers from the Southern African Development Community (SADC), with widespread reports of voter intimidation and the cancellation of opposition rallies. Election Day itself was shambolic, with polling stations in opposition strongholds far more likely to experience significant delays and inadequate materials than others. Ruling party agents intimidated voters at “exit poll” tables where they recorded citizens’ personal details before they voted, while disinformation campaigns discouraged people from turning up to vote. Independent journalists and election observers were denied entry to the country, and local observers working on the parallel vote tabulation were arrested.

Official Results Questioned
Officially, according to the ZEC: the ruling Marxist party, Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU–PF) won 136 seats and the opposition Citizens’ Coalition for Change( CCC ) won 73, with ZANU–PF dominating most rural areas (primarily Mashonaland) and the opposition CCC capturing the urban vote, particularly Harare and Bulawayo and Matabeleland. Officially, the ZEC election commissioner announced on Saturday that: Zanu-PF President Emmerson Mnangagwa, 80, won the election with 52.6% of the vote, while opposition Citizens’Coalition for Change (CCC) leader Nelson Chamisa received 44% of the votes. According to the official results, Zanu-PF presidential candidate Emmerson Mnangagwa got 2.46 million votes, or 51% of the votes cast, compared with the Citizens Coalition for Change candidate Nelson Chamisa’s 2.15 million votes, or 45% of the votes cast. The opposition has rejected the result and outside observers have raised serious questions about the process.( Fortunately, the people of Zimbabwe have more freedom of speech than those in United States of America where questioning the official election results can get one arrested.) The main opposition party, in Zimbabwe, the Citizens’ Coalition for Change (CCC), has rejected the official election results and demanded that the country should redo the election. Saviour Kasukuwere, a former Zimbabwean Cabinet Minister disqualified from running for the presidency by the High Court,said that Zimbabweans were “dismayed” and that the whole process was a “charade.”
Yet this year’s election results might signal to the ruling party that “there are diminishing returns from the authoritarian strategy, and at some point, you’ve got to deliver something to the people. Otherwise, the process simply becomes unfeasible and implausible,”
A bigger problem, say critics like Kasukuwere, is that he ZANU-PF government has no legitimacy.
“We can’t continue with this charade where you want to keep the country in isolation because you want to win elections illegally,”

The Failure of South Africa’s Silent Diplomacy
Evidently South Africa’s “silent diplomacy” with Zimbabwe has been an abysmal failure and has instead increased the humanitarian burden on South Africa and other neighbouring states which accommodates millions of refugees who have fled from the failed state of Zimbabwe. As ActionSA leader Mashaba has declared:“But instead of demanding accountability from Zanu-PF, the ruling ANC party has chosen to support the murderous ZANU-PF regime and has even previously provided millions of dollars in bailouts to the nation. The ruling party(ANC) has repeatedly allowed Zanu-PF to abuse the Zimbabwean people, leading to thousands of Zimbabweans crossing our borders to seek jobs, healthcare, and shelter in South Africa.”
” We cannot allow a situation where humanitarian disasters are created because the South African government favours murderous regimes instead of demanding accountability for human rights abuses,” said the ActionSA leader.

Unbelievable
The official results of the Zimbabwean elections held last week are that Zanu-PF won, yet again!
What we are being asked to believe is that one of Africa’s least successful political parties (which managed to reduce GDP per capita in real terms from $1,600 at independence in 1980 to under $1,300 today, 50 years later, in real terms after several bouts of hyperinflation which destroyed almost everybody’s savings, pensions and earnings) has been endorsed, yet again, by the majority of its citizens. Either Zimbabweans are the most intellectually challenged and economically benighted people in the world, or there is something suspicious going on here.

Comparing Zimbabwe Elections and Economy with Botswana
Compare this disastrous, downward economic trajectory with Botswana next door; Botswana is also landlocked, also the product of British colonialism, also dominated by a single party, also mineral export-dependent. Botswana’s GDP per capita in real terms has risen from around $2,000 in 1980, according to economics website Trading Economics, to $7,000 over the same period. South Africa’s was about $4,500 in 1994 when the ANC were handed power, and it’s now around $6,000. It is generally accepted that any government of a country where the economy is in decline will be voted out of office by the electorate. It is unprecedented that voters who are suffering economically vote for the government under whom their economy declined.

Neither Free nor Fair
According to the Zimbabwe observer missions, the elections were far from free and fair. Even the SADC Electoral Observation Mission, which is normally very cautious about making forthright judgements, said the poll was “well below expected standards”. The mission talked about the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission’s failure to distribute ballots on time, resulting in delayed polls in some parts of the country; the inability of voters in Manicaland to cast any votes, the banning of foreign journalists and opposition rallies; and a shadowy group called Forever Associates Zimbabwe linked to Zanu-PF, which set up “survey desks” outside polling stations in an intimidatory manner towards voters. No reasonable person would call these elections fair, which is why several observer missions, including the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the European Union, issued statements pointing to profound flaws in the process. But the deck was stacked well before these observer missions arrived on the ground. The pre-election climate featured draconian new legal restrictions on freedom of expression and the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), which is blatantly politicized and widely mistrusted, tilted the playing field in multiple ways, including undertaking a partisan delimitation exercise that failed to account for the growth of Zimbabwe’s urban centres and neglecting to fulfil its legal duties of making an accurate electronic voters’ roll available to candidates. Rural areas which are the traditional support bases of ZANU have many more seats, whereas urban areas which are traditional strongholds of the opposition have far fewer seats proportional to their population.

The violation of the Lancaster House Agreement and the Fraudulent 1980 Elections
ZANU-PF came to power through blatantly fraudulent elections in 1980 where they failed to adhere to the requirements of the Lancaster House peace agreement and engaged in massive intimidation and terrorism, murdering opposition supporters and assassinating opposition candidates. Yet, the British Governor Lord Christopher Soames failed to disqualify Mugabe’s ZANU-PF as required by the Lancaster House agreement.
Nor did Gov Soames rule inadmissible the votes in areas where ZANU-PF intimidation had been rife. By rewarding the blatant violations and ignoring the murderous intimidation tactics, the British Foreign Office taught Mugabe’s Marxist ZANU-PF terrorists that it did not matter how many laws they violated, nor how many people they murdered, as long as they won the election, they would be accorded every courtesy, welcomed as members of the Commonwealth, the African Union and the United Nations and receive hundreds of millions of pounds and dollars in foreign aid. Having come to power through deception and violence, ZANU has continue to maintain its power through deception and violence.

Historic Voting Patterns in Zimbabwean Elections
If you look at Zimbabwe’s elections historically, you cannot help but notice some absolutely extraordinary things. We cannot tell what happens in the voting booths, but one thing we do know is how many votes were cast. The first noticeable thing about Zimbabwe is that the proportion of people who are registered voters is very small compared with the population. Supposedly, officially, there are 16 million Zimbabwean citizens. That means 35% of the total population is registered. Compare that with SA, where about 40% are registered, and Namibia, with about 53% registered. The small proportion of voters registered in Zimbabwe is suspiciously low. The second thing to notice is that in Zimbabwe’s case, when you compare the past three elections, the number of registered voters is declining. That is quite bizarre. How can that possibly be happening? In a young country, it should be increasing as more of the youth reach voting age. That is what is happening in South Africa and Namibia. South Africa adds about a million new voters per election.
Yet, incredibly, even though the number of registered voters is declining, the number of votes cast is increasing in Zimbabwe. The percentage of votes cast as a proportion of registered voters has exploded — it’s now sitting at 85%. So, in this past election, we are supposed to believe that 85% of registered Zimbabwean voters cast their votes. By comparison, in both SA and Namibia, the number of votes cast as a percentage of registered voters is about 70% and that, by international standards, is extremely high.
You can get some very high and very low voter turnouts around the world. Brazil has just had one of the most fiercely contested elections in its history in which 79% of registered voters voted. The UK’s most recent election, also hotly contested, drew about 67% of registered voters. But an 85% turnout is extremely rare.
Based on these figures, it would appear that the Zanu-PF supporters, who make up most of the electoral authority, are engaging in that old trick of the incumbent government: they are not updating the voters’ roll unless the voters can be relied on to vote the right way. Unfortunately, inevitably, some voters are dying, so that reduces the total voters’ roll. And that would, of course, inflate the proportion of votes cast, which is exactly what we are seeing. There are also reports of votes for the ruling party from citizens who are deceased.
By controlling the ballot in this way, Zanu-PF can effectively steal the election — but subtly. Doing so is never going to be entirely invisible. But the point is that it can be stolen in a way that offers a sufficient amount of doubt which will allow the party to make the claim, dubious as it may be, that it and the president were democratically elected. This was not a poll “below expected standards”. It was an obviously fraudulent poll, a stolen election.
When the ZEC announced that incumbent President Emmerson Mnangagwa had been reelected with roughly 53 percent of the vote, no one was surprised. The results of a parallel vote tabulation exercise are yet to be released. But
The United States condemned recent presidential elections in Zimbabwe,
The US State Department says that the ruling party suppressed the opposition and hindered independent observers.
“We call on the ZEC to make the disaggregated polling station results publicly available to increase confidence in the result tabulation process,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement Monday.
It’s the latest headache this year for U.S. diplomats who are increasingly viewing Africa as a theatre of competing influence with China and Russia. In other parts of the continent, the U.S. and Western powers hope their African allies can restore civilian rule in Niger, end the bloodshed in Sudan and support Chad’s transition away from military control.
Last week’s election in Zimbabwe, a country of about 16 million people, was the latest troubled vote in its fraught political history. It allowed Mnangagwa’s party, the (ZANU-PF), to retain the power it has held since the country gained full independence from the United Kingdom in 1980.
The U.S. has a long history of financial and political support for Zimbabwe and was the first to open an embassy there after independence. In fiscal 2022, the U.S. provided $398.59 million in aid to the country, with a large portion to fight HIV/AIDS. The assistance also included $12.91 million to support democracy, human rights and governance.
The modern state of Zimbabwe traces to the end of white minority rule in 1980 when Robert Mugabe became prime minister following the first elections after independence. Mugabe ruled for the next 37 years, consolidating power over time and eroding the independence of other parts of the government. His rule was marked with repression, corruption and economic decline.
Zimbabwe suffers from soaring inflation, high unemployment, poor public health resources and a weak education system. Although it is full of natural resources, such as gold and lithium, mismanagement and corruption hasn’t translated those minerals into substantial revenue to benefit the population, leaving the government in massive debt to international lenders.
In 2017, the military seized power and arrested the aging Mugabe. Mugabe resigned and Mnangagwa, one of his longtime associates, was sworn in as president.
The 80-year-old Mnangagwa was challenged in elections last week by 45-year-old Nelson Chamisa of the Citizens Coalition for Change. It was a rematch of the 2018 elections, where Mnangagwa had won his first term in a narrow victory with 51% of the vote, although that election was marred by irregularities.
On Saturday, the electoral commission declared Mnangagwa the winner with 52% of the vote, but Chamisa quickly alleged “blatant and gigantic fraud.”
“They stole your voice and vote but never your hope,” Chamisa wrote on X, the site formerly known as Twitter. “There shall be freedom and justice in Zimbabwe!”
Multiple organizations raised the alarm about the vote, highlighting arrests, violence and intimidation by the ZANU-PF against Chamisa’s party. Some foreign journalists were barred from covering the election and the electoral commission refused to issue accreditation to some election observers.
The country’s laws require Chamisa to file an official petition with the constitutional court to challenge the election. Observers, however, have questioned the independence of Zimbabwe’s judicial system, noting that Mugabe and Mnangagwa expanded their power over the judiciary.
Miller said the reported intimidation and interference with electoral observers undermines democratic rule and U.S. diplomats are discussing their concerns with regional leaders.
“These actions belie President Mnangagwa’s repeated pledges to respect rule of law, transparency, and accountability,” he said. “There is much at stake for the people of Zimbabwe and the region. We urge all Zimbabweans to remain peaceful and pursue grievances through established legal channels.”

What are the regional implications of the vote’s results?
Regional integration and development plans have been stymied by Zimbabwe’s economic dysfunction and crumbling infrastructure. Moreover, difficult conditions at home have driven an exodus of Zimbabweans seeking more opportunity, and more than three-quarters of a million of them now live in South Africa, where their legal status has become a hot-button political issue in light of that country’s own unemployment crisis. As former Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano noted earlier this year, Zimbabwe’s crisis “is having terrible consequences for the region as Zimbabwe lies at the heart of southern Africa.”
Despite the spillover effects of the country’s downward spiral, for years SADC largely ignored political repression in Zimbabwe, as neighboring leaders are reluctant to criticize Zimbabwe’s ruling party, which shares liberation movement credentials with many other dominant parties in the region, including South Africa’s African National Congress. This history makes the pointed SADC statement on the election’s flaws particularly important. The region may be running out of patience with Zimbabwe’s leadership.

Zimbabwe’s political instability has made it the target of Western sanctions, and the growing influence of competing powers such as China and Russia has pushed Mnangagwa further from the West. What might a second Mnangagwa term mean for the future of Zimbabwe’s engagement with the U.S., China, and Russia?
Zimbabwe has a long history of close relations with China, although Beijing has been less generous with its economic support to Harare in recent years. Relations with Russia, already warm, have deepened as the two countries position themselves as victims of biased Western sanctions in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Both China and Russia have mining interests in Zimbabwe, which has extensive natural resources, including gold, platinum, and diamonds.
The United States maintains targeted sanctions on specific individuals and entities in Zimbabwe. There are no blanket sanctions against trade and investment in Zimbabwe. But for many Western companies, Zimbabwe is an unattractive place to do business, because corruption and blurred lines between the ruling party, the military, and the state itself have distorted the investment climate. Elections that signaled a new commitment to civil and political rights in Zimbabwe would undoubtedly have been met with enthusiasm in the West, as the targeted sanctions regime has become an irritant in Western relations with other African states, and Zimbabwe’s vast lithium reserves could play an important role in the transition to a green economy. But the process thus far gives U.S. policymakers no reason to believe a more productive bilateral relationship is possible in the near future.
n the words of veteran opposition leader and former Zimbabwean finance minister, Tendai Biti:
“Millions of Zimbabweans hoped for change. They hoped to be delivered from the scourge of unemployment, poverty, decayed infrastructure, collapsed public services, captured institutions, violence and an exhausted liberation movement that continues to hold them hostage.”
It’s bad for the region. A fragile region, already looking after more than two million Zimbabweans, now has to face the implosion of a fresh wave of Zimbabwean immigrants.

The opposition immediately contested the results, with Chamisa calling the vote “fraught with unprecedented illegality.” Speaking on Sunday, the CCC head described the results as “doctored” and “criminal.”

International election observers stressed that there had been problems with the poll held last Wednesday and Thursday. They cited an atmosphere of intimidation against Chamisa’s supporters.

Over 40 local election monitors were arrested. Observers also listed censored media coverage and new, draconian laws like the Patriotic Bill, which authorizes penalties, including the death penalty, for anyone found guilty of “willfully damaging the sovereignty and national interest of Zimbabwe.” The vague wording gives authorities ample scope to use the bill against political opponents.
At 45, opposition leader Nelson Chamisa is almost four decades younger than Mnangagwa. According to the Zimbabwe Election Commission, voter turnout was around 69%, suggesting that many younger Zimbabweans stayed away from the polls.
Zimbabwe’s security forces have a history of cracking down on protesters around election time. This happened in 2018, when soldiers killed six people after opening fire on demonstrators and bystanders, and in 2008, which saw dozens of deaths and abductions.
“The sad reality is that the situation is so repressive that if the opposition called for mass protest, it would probably lead to a loss of life. That places the opposition in a really difficult position,” said Cheeseman, adding that it was also “unfeasible” to get justice out of Zimbabwe’s “increasingly politicized courts.”

 

Dr. Peter Hammond Frontline Fellowship PO Box 74 | Newlands | 7725 | Cape Town | South Africa Tel: +27 21 689 4480 website | email

 

 

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