Full statement:
Sunday, 16 October 2016
ZEC should be honest and candid
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) has the very important and demanding constitutional mandate to run elections that are free, fair and credible.
The MDC, together with several other opposition political parties under- the National Electoral Reform Agenda (NERA), has been at the forefront of vigorously pushing for the adoption of electoral reforms that are meant to vaccinate the Zimbabwean political and electoral environment against the toxic virus of poll rigging.
The rigging of elections can be both overt and covert. There are more obvious forms of poll rigging such as the staffing of ballot boxes, multiple voting etc. There are other more subtle and highly sophisticated forms of electoral rigging such as the manipulation of the voters roll, both manual and electronic, as well as the use of ballot papers that are chemically designed to project a particular result at any given polling station.
A lot has been said and written about how the ZANU-PF regime, working in cahoots with the Israeli company, Nikuv, employed a highly sophisticated method to rig the harmonized elections that were held on July 31,2013. This was a very smart and cutting edge approach to the 'art' of electoral rigging. To this very day, very few people, even within the top echelons of the ZANU-PF regime, are aware of how, exactly, the July 31, 2013 elections were rigged. Be that as it may, it doesn't need a rocket scientist to know that the result of the plebiscite that was held in Zimbabwe on July 31, 2013 didn't reflect the wishes of the majority of the voters. Put bluntly, the election was stolen.
Election 2018 is less than 24 months away and this is the time for ZEC to put all the necessary systems in place to ensure that the elections will produce a result that is credible and legitimate; a result that is beyond contestation thus underlying the need for the holding of free and fair elections. ZEC has announced that a new voters' roll will be produced for Election 2018.They have also announced that only 1500 voters will be allowed per polling station and that the new voters' roll will have photographs of all registered voters. This is the time that ZEC should collaborate and liase with all legitimate political parties and other relevant stakeholders to ensure that as far as is practically possible, the next elections will be free and fair.
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