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MORGAN Tsvangirai
30/03/04 MDC PRESIDENT MORGAN TSVANGIRAI’S TUESDAY MESSAGE TO THE PEOPLE OF ZIMBABWE THE MDC entered the 2002 Presidential election fully aware that the rules of the game were stark against democracy. Since 2000, we participated in all the by-elections because of our firm belief in taking over power through democratic means. The image of opposition parties in Africa has been severely dented by the apparent readiness to use arms to deal with post-colonial dictatorships. The results have been often been chaotic and unpredictable. That route has never been an option for the MDC. But an analysis of the Zengeza by-election shows that political competition here remains a bloody affair 24 years after independence. Zanu PF is prepared to kill and satisfy its hunger for power and oppression. Francis Chinozvinya, an MDC activist was shot dead on Sunday in a Zanu PF raid at the home of the MDC candidate James Makore in Zengeza. Another MDC youth, Arthur Gunzvenzve, was shot in the leg and taken to hospital. Scores of other MDC supporters and activists were seriously injured since the start of the campaign in Zengeza. We condemn the continuous descent into thuggery, lawlessness and mayhem in the general body politic in Zimbabwe. Elections, which should reflect the exercise of our sovereignty in the selection of our leaders should never become open seasons for murder, torture, beatings and violence. Earlier, more than 200 voters in a voting queue were attacked and chased away by a riotous Zanu PF group. No arrests were made despite the fact that the perpetrators committed the crime right in front of members of the police. One polling station was sealed off and the Zanu PF militia threw stones and other objects at voters wishing to cast their ballots. Zengeza gave the people of Zimbabwe a foretaste of the chaos that awaits the nation in 2005. Conducting any election in this manner affects the secrecy of the ballot and must be condemned. The perversion of our electoral system started in earnest during the Parliamentary election when it became clear to Robert Mugabe that Zanu PF was in trouble with the people Apart from express violence, open intimidation and other clear physical infringements, the legal management and the secrecy of the ballot itself became a direct casualty of Mugabe’s desperate ploy to influence any election outcome. Five years ago, the people expressed their utmost displeasure with the office of the Registrar General. In all the provinces, the people stated that the current manner in which elections are conducted was unacceptable in a democracy. The people want an Independent Electoral Commission. I argued in my election petition in the High Court in November 2003 that the Electoral Supervisory Commission lacked the necessary independence to conduct a free and fair election. In March 2002, the ESC comprised of four members, instead of the five required by the Constitution. The anomaly made the ESC legally unsuitable to exercise its full functions and this resulted in fatally flawed Presidential election. The Electoral Act clearly states that, if the ESC requests, a minister may second civil servants to the staff of the Commission for the purposes of assisting in the running of an election. This did not happen in 2002. Instead, Robert Mugabe issued a decree four days before voting began directing Cabinet ministers to appoint staff, not necessarily civil servants, to the ESC at a time when the Commission had not requested for additional resources. You will recall that in 2002 thousands of soldiers were deployed countrywide to campaign for Mugabe. After their campaigns, they were appointed to ESC to supervise that election. How does one expect a villager’s secret vote when the previous night an armed soldier visited villager at home, campaigning for Zanu PF, only to turn up the following morning, in civilian clothing, at a polling station as an election agent or an ESC official? Mugabe violated the Electoral Act and compromised the independence of the ESC by ordering it to employ soldiers he selected to run the election. Despite our advice and protests, Mugabe remained adamant that he was right. He is likely to continue behaving in that manner in 2005 knowing fully well that such an act affects an election outcome in his favour. The practice compromises the secrecy of the ballot. At night the soldiers moved from one household to another and the following morning the same individuals were seen in polling booths supervising the actual voting. This frightened thousands of voters. The practice makes a mockery of the secrecy of the ballot. More recently in Gutu North, Zanu PF forced chiefs, headmen and village heads to commandeer ordinary villagers to polling stations and make sure they vote for that party. Out of fear, these community leaders complied and banned our rallies in their areas. The practice compromises the secrecy of the ballot. Last week, the MDC stated that the latest proposals to amend the Electoral Act were another step in the wrong direction by the Zanu PF government. We argued that substantive amendments are indeed required to the existing Electoral Act in order to harmonise its provisions with SADC Norms and Standards for elections, adopted by the SADC Parliamentary Forum Plenary Assembly on 25 March 2001. However, the amendments proposed in the Bill, are the very anti-thesis of harmonisation; in fact they demonstrate the gulf of difference between the Zimbabwe government and its SADC counterparts with respect to the management and conduct of elections. Botswana, South Africa, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique and Namibia will conduct elections in strict accordance with agreed SADC standards. Why should Zimbabwe be allowed to swim against the tide of progress, electoral probity and decency, transparency and basic reason? The proposed amendments strengthen the status quo in relation to the flawed administration and management of elections. This is illustrated by an amendment that gives the state sole control of the voter education process through a partisan ESC, whose staff includes members of military appointed by Mugabe. The plan seeks to compromise the secrecy of the ballot. As you participate in your national elections, voters in South Africa, Malawi, Namibia and Mozambique please kindly spare a thought for your counterparts in Zimbabwe who 24 years after independence, are still being denied their basic democratic right of casting their ballots in a free and fair election. You will recall that in 2002 all the results in the Presidential election are despatched to an exclusive place called a command centre where the opposition is barred. Here results were analysed by carefully selected Zanu PF team before they were announced to the nation. Such actions undermine people’s confidence in the secrecy of the ballot. The Zimbabwe Constitution says the electoral law governing Presidential and Parliamentary elections must be passed by Parliament. But the current Electoral Act delegates Mugabe to change, make additions to, and even to delete the same act. The proposed amendments ignore this crucial part whose net effect is an attack on the secrecy of the ballot. The Electoral Act as it is presently constituted violates the Constitution in that it allows Robert Mugabe, a very rough player, to define the rules of the game. Section 158 in particular violates the principle of the separation of powers between the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. Mugabe loves Section 158 as it allows him to unilaterally shift the goal posts at will and without Parliamentary scrutiny. He will certainly apply it extensively in 2005. I say so because in 2002, Mugabe – among other infringements -- used Section 158 to close the voters roll on 10 January 2002. He quietly re-opened the registration of voters. He announced later, through the publication of a similar decree, that the voters roll was closed on 29 January 2002. After realising that the numbers he wanted were insufficient, he re-opened roll, again quietly. The nation was only told on 1 March 2002 that the voters roll was to be closed on 3 March 2002. In so doing, Mugabe repeatedly and secretly extended the cut-off date for voter registration and allowed for the late registration of voters in areas perceived to be sympathetic to himself and his Zanu PF party. Using Section 158, Mugabe made changes and additions to conduct of the election on 17 January 2002, on 6 February, on 22 February (twice), on 1 March (twice), on 3 March, on 5 March (four times) and on 8 March (three times). We challenged this strange behaviour in the Supreme Court on 8 March. Surprisingly, the court reserved judgement when it knew that voting was due to start the following morning, thus turning our challenge into a mere academic exercise. Still fresh in our minds is the manner in which Mugabe used Section 158 to limit the number of voting stations in urban areas, precisely because he realised the MDC was the strongest political party in these constituencies. This was a direct act of political discrimination against urban voters. A smart attempt to clean up the Electoral Act must look at Section 158. I believe this section is unconstitutional as it effectively grants unlimited powers to Mugabe. He used Section 158 to deny large numbers of Zimbabweans their vote after he re-classified them as foreigners. He used the section to ban all postal votes from ordinary Zimbabweans. While the Electoral Act specifies that the staff of the ESC must be members of the public service, Mugabe directed military officers to take over the running of the ESC. Section 113 of the Constitution excludes the Prison Service, the Police Force and the Defence Forces from its definition of the public service. Mugabe was aware of that. Using Section 158, he changed Section 11 of the Electoral Act with the following decree: “Notwithstanding subsection (1) of Section 11 of the Act, the Minister or any other Minister may assign to the Commission such persons in the employment of the state as may be necessary to perform secretarial and administrative functions of the Commission.” The Constitution forbids this form of interference in the work of the Commission as it states clearly in Section 61 that the ESC shall not be subject to the direction or control of any person or authority. Come to 2005, what safeguards do we as Zimbabweans have to curb the kind of wayward behaviour we saw from Zanu PF in the past five years? Are we ready as a nation go through the same agony we endured in 2000 and in 2002? What kind of life did the Zimbabwean voter go through in the various by-elections conducted in this country since 2000? Are these ordeals necessary if the outcome is going to be pre- determined anyway? Instead of the people focussing on whether we, as the MDC, plan to participate in 2005 or not, debate must be re-directed to the crucial issue at hand: the conditions on the ground. We are not helping ourselves as Zimbabweans if we continue debating the merits and disadvantages of end result, while ignoring the process leading to elections. This is a life-and-death subject. On Sunday Francis Chinozvinya died for democracy. He joins hundreds of MDC supporters who lost their lives; thousands who were displaced, raped and maimed while fighting for change. Our supporters, various opinion-formers and policy makers, the media and the international community must assist Zimbabwe in directing debate on the centre of the dispute. The electoral conditions in this country are a ready recipe for confrontation and perpetual contest. Zimbabweans, SADC and the international community are aware of the flaws in our electoral system. If Zanu PF maintains its stubbornness and refuses to yield to pressure, how should Zimbabweans behave? Do we still participate in conditions similar to what we witnessed in Zengeza? I have a responsibility as the leader of the largest political party in Zimbabwe. I have a contract with the people. Do I still urge them to soldier on in the face of death, beatings, ballot theft and a direct denial to exercise their sovereign will? The people are arguing that they have tried to use the democratic route available to them. They say they have given the MDC their support. They have come out and tried to vote. But their voice has been repeated stolen. If we go ahead and take part in the 2005 Parliamentary election under the same conditions and the outcome is tampered with, what recourse is at our disposal? Do we resort to the courts for relief and justice? We tried that route after 2000 and it took us nowhere. The media could play a direct role in shaping public debate on the conditions for elections in Zimbabwe. As we have seen in Harare where democracy was completely shut out by Zanu PF, the struggle for change remains an unfinished business. The city council has been barred from fulfilling the MDC programme. The party’s development agenda was totally disabled by the regime. The people, through their elected representatives, are being denied the right to govern themselves. We need to pressure Zanu PF to listen to the voice of reason and create an enabling climate for the registration of a genuine will of the people through free and fair elections. We are concerned about the secrecy of the ballot and the process leading to the day of voting. Some Zimbabweans are keen to blame the victim in times of crisis. Why? A change in conditions leads to a win-win situation. Zanu PF, if it wins such an election, will get the legitimacy Mugabe desperately needs today. If the MDC wins, the country will rollback to its former self: a fountain of intellect and a promising industrial hub of southern Africa. Free elections are the cornerstone of any democracy and progress. International human rights instruments recognise this fact. Article 21 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights thus provides: Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives…. The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures. Our consultations with our supporters and party structures are continuing. We shall announce our intentions after we have exhausted debate on the strategies we seek to deploy to compel Zanu PF to change the conditions for the 2005 election. In our conversations, at our homes, indeed at any gathering we must talk about the road to 2005, in particular the conditions under which we, as a nation, are expected to make a decision affecting the future of our country. We have to shape the future. We have to think seriously about life after Zanu PF is gone. The crisis is deepening. We have a chance to change the course of politics next year. But the conditions must be right. With courage and hope, we shall overcome fear and effect fundamental changes to our ailing political culture in Zimbabwe. Morgan Tsvangirai PRESIDENT Sometimes I think I understand everything, then I regain consciousness. The Mulindwas Communication Group
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