ZANU-PF’s poor 2023 election heist

 

On August 26th, 2023, Zimbabweans went to bed with shoes on - a common proverb amongst the local folks which simply translates to being heavily disappointed - after the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, in the dead of the night, announced presidential results and declared Emmerson Mnangagwa as the winner with 52.6% of the votes with his closest rival, Nelson Chamisa of the Citizen Coalition for Change (CCC)’s having gathered only 44% of the vote in the harmonized elections which were held on August 23rd and 24th. 

The elections were hugely shambolic and have since received widespread condemnation with regional, international and local bodies and human rights groups such as the SADC observer mission, the AU observer mission, the UN secretary general, the Carter Center Election Observer Mission, the EU observer mission, ZESN, ERC among many others.

This was the second election after the toppling of Zimbabwe’s long time dictator Robert Gabriel Mugabe who was succeeded by his former long-time right hand man Emmerson D Mnangagwa in a military assisted transition back in 2017. 

Like the 2018 polls before it, this year’s election was a two-man horse race between the incumbent President Mnangagwa and the main opposition party Citizens Coalition For Change (CCC)’s charismatic 45 year-old clergy leader, Nelson Chamisa. 

The build up to the election

As usual, Zimbabwe is almost always in an election mode. The build up to this year’s election started in 2019 soon after the 2018 election with the ruling party’s move to amend the constitution through constitutional amendment acts number one and two. The move was a way to fully capture the judiciary which was the avenue that was used by the opposition to dispute the 2018 election results. Although the courts had delivered a ruling in favor of the ruling party, the court process was nerve wrecking for them as they had not yet established full control of the bench after a coup on Mugabe who previously controlled the courts. 

The amendment was a way of establishing full control as one now serves on the bench on the mercy of the ruling elite thanks to the amendment  acts number 1 and 2. The years to come will be filled with a lot of draconian laws being passed such as The Patriotic Act, the cyber and  data security act, PVO bill and the maintenance of public order act (MOPA). This was largely designed to shrink the democratic space and restrict participation. 

The annihilation and obliteration of the main opposition political party. 

After the disputed 2018 harmonized elections, the then main opposition political party MDC-Alliance refused to recognize Mr Mnangagwa as the winner. The opposition thus imposed a huge legitimacy crisis on ZANU-PF denting the prospects of the ruling party’s engagement and re-engagement prospects.

This didn’t sit well with the ruling party which devised a plan to deal with the opposition. Fortunately for them, they found willing collaborators within the opposition party ranks. A group of senior opposition leaders who were disgruntled after losing the 2019 opposition elective congress became willing enablers as they saw the chance to get back to their former comrades who they felt had betrayed them. 

The disgruntled opposition leaders through proxies began approaching courts to challenge the leadership of Nelson Chamisa. They went on to win the case at the supreme court which dubiously ruled to impose leadership on a political party, a voluntary organization. What followed was the constant purging of the elected officials who were aligned to Chamisa and the subsequent expulsion of Chamisa and his allies from the MDC-Alliance. The ruling party had succeeded in destroying the legitimate opposition and imposed a leader of their choice through courts. Chamisa lost his party, the headquarters and the money. He lost everything and to survive he had to rebuild a daunting task as elections were fast approaching, credit to him. He managed to form a new party and built from scratch.

The weaponization of the law against government critics

The advent of Covid-19 pandemic in 2019 which brought the world to a halt with induced lockdowns and travel restrictions presented an opportunity for the government of Zimbabwe to clamp down on dissenting voices on the guise of enforcing covid-19 restrictions without the world paying attention as everyone was occupied with domestic issues which were as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. The government arrested and detained activists and journalists for long periods without trial. 

Ever since then, the government has been purging critics using the law and captured courts. This was done to set a stage for suppressing freedom of assembly and expression as the build-up to the 2023 harmonized elections continued. It became increasingly difficult for the opposition or civil society organization to organize and mobilize. 

The use of systematic violence against government critics

Since 2020, we have seen an increase in state sponsored violence, enforced disappearances and torture of government critics. This started with the abduction of the MDC trio in 2020, followed by the abduction of Tawanda Muchehiwa and many more activists. The operation was overseen by a security branch known as “ferrets.”

We also witnessed the slain and murder of opposition activists and politicians by perceived ruling party supporters who were arrested and then released in no time by the police. The police also issued various cover up statements. 

Voter registration suppression 

In the build-up to the 2023 elections, Zimbabwe had the potential of having over 3 million virgin voters who were mostly below 35 years - a constituency which traditionally supports the opposition. This demographic group have zero memory of Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle which the ruling party is using to woo voters. The youth are mainly concerned about the economy and jobs, something the ruling party has failed to offer for the last 43 years. 

The ruling party knew that, if they allowed this population to vote, it would mark their end and decided to suppress their participation. Those who were turning 18 found it difficult to get a national identity card which is a requirement to register to vote. Additionally, the electoral commission wasn’t doing voter education and mobilization, focusing instead on banning organizations which were stepping in to close that gap. 

The Electoral Management board also set up voter registration centers far away from the residences of people that in some cases, people were supposed to travel over 200km to register to vote. In response Civil society groups and political parties started an exercise to transport voters to register to vote, an expensive and unsustainable exercise. 

A botched delimitation processes

In December 2022, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission concluded a delimitation processes which was full of irregularities. The Electoral Management Board (EMB) produced a shocking delimitation report which was even in violation of the constitution, electoral act and other regional and international legal instruments that governs delimitation processes. It was political gerrymandered and malapportioned to favour the ruling party ZANU-PF. 

The boundaries were drawn in such a manner that it didn't even conform to section 161 of the constitution of Zimbabwe. The commission paid no attention to critics and/or advice. The government went on to gazette a political gerrymandered and malapportioned boundaries which highly favours the ruling party ZANU-PF. This was an effort to advantage ZANU-PF parliamentary candidates. A strategy to return a two-thirds majority in parliament do that they can amend the constitution and pass laws that consolidates their power. 

Voter suppression and coercion tactics 

On the 23rd of August, Zimbabweans wake up early in the morning with the hope to cast their ballot only to be shocked as they were no ballot papers in many polling stations in urban areas. Although the commission had promised the nation, political stakeholders and observer missions that there is enough voting material, it turned out it wasn’t true. Voters will wait in queues for hours as the voting material were being printed. Even though voting was extended with another day, voters were already frustrated and went home. 

The commission attributed the delay of supply of ballot papers to issues to do with court challenges. An excuse which is not true given that a few days before polls, the commission on several times had told the nation that they printed 7 million ballot papers. How then do they turn and say we failed to print because of court challenges yet they had said we printed enough. 

This is an indication that, the shortage of ballot papers was planned to frustrate urban voters who are perceived to be opposition supporters. It is not surprising to some of us who had engaged in election work for the last three years in preparation of the 2023 harmonized elections. We witnessed voter suppression during voter registration in urban areas. The commission was very deliberate to frustrate first time potential registrants so that they go away. During the voter registration blitz, we noticed that most centers in urban areas machines were always said to be offline or no power that people hardly registered. What happened on the 23rd of August was a continuation of what we saw the entire voter registration period. 

Although the voting process in rural areas was smooth, the voters were generally commandeered to vote a certain way. They were desk set up by ZANU-PF affiliate group  known as forever associates of Zimbabwe (FAZ). The exercise was  claimed to be exit polls surveys where voters will go before they vote. This was a way to coerce voters to vote a certain way. 

All these shenanigans were being done openly and brazenly. That made it difficult to ignore for many observers. It is important to point out that since 2000, Zimbabwe has been engulfed in election disputes. All the elections since then have been disputed yet SADC and AU were always taking the side of ZANU-PF.

 It is the first time that these bodies have unanimously condemned and put ZANU-PF to sword. This is so mainly because this time unlike in the past when rigging was being done with a bit of sophistication that it was easy to sweep it under the carpet and cover it up. This time it was done in an unsophisticated manner and difficult to ignore. This speaks to the fact that all the brains of ZANU-PF who were acting as software were flushed out in November 2017 during the coup, they are left with hardware only with a limited  intellectual capability.

This also largely speaks to change of approach by the SADC and AU when it comes to Zimbabwean crisis that has been ever folding for over two decades. Zimbabweans have generally become a burden to the region. As a nation, we must thank the region for standing with the people of Zimbabwe. ZANU-PF is in full force attacking the SADC observer mission. They have started to peddle conspiracy theories that the head of the observer is a western puppet. 

The aftermath of the election will likely be dominated on how poorly ZANU-PF rigged the 2023 elections in a manner that is so embarrassing and shocking. The legitimacy crisis will continue to hound Mr Mnangagwa, he will be shunned by his regional peers. This time the pressure will not be coming from Washington DC but from Gaborone and Addis Abba. Real politics have just began in Zimbabwe.

Youngerson Matete is a pro-democracy and Human Rights activist, a student of Political Science. He is the founder of Project Vote 263, a youth-led initiative to foster inclusive participatory democracy in Zimbabwe. He writes in his own capacity. His views doesn't not represents any organisation.

Cell : +263 773 622 044

Email: youngmatete0@gmail.com/ director@projectvote263.org.zw