Invasions of large scale commercial farms became a new component of election strategy (not least because they housed farm workers, seen to be stoked against ZANU-PF). These were accompanied by restrictive “public order” and media legislation, along with “green bombers” in the militias helping eliminate vote-gathering challengers.
By the presidential election of 2002 the techniques included gerrymandering to add rural votes to the urban areas, which tended to support the MDC, reducing the number of polling booths in cities and snail-like processing on the election days. At the same time the gamut of alterations to the tally included restrictive registration and the usual tricks at the counting stage.
On the foreign front, the sitting South African president wrote a missive to his party that was scathingly critical of political affairs to his north. To accuse a political party of having only the “lumpen-proletariat” (the marauding war vets) as a support base is nasty indeed.
Although Thabo Mbeki told whomever was listening in Zimbabwe’s “revolutionary party” to follow the precepts of free and fair elections, his quiet diplomacy did not waver. He did in fact send a second mission to investigate the contest. But it took the Mail and Guardian newspaper years to win its court case and reveal the critical Khampepe report.
The 2005 challenge was relatively mild. But the rulers’ pique was still such that it went on a rampage to destroy thousands of informal traders’ stalls and mildly illegal housing, displacing an estimated 700 000. Operation Murambatsvina was a prime example of urbicide.
Three years later (just before Mbeki’s final deposition) the MDC almost won the “harmonised” March 2008 contest. This included cities, parliament (with a Senate, the establishment of which caused the opposition to split into two parties) and the presidential race.
The official election commission spent nearly six weeks reckoning a 47% victory for the long suffering pretenders to power. But the new constitution forced a run-off to reach the required 50% plus triumph.
Mugabe and his military took no chances: the violence they meted out was so severe that MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai abandoned the race. ZANU-PF’s victory was too hollow for their continental peers: Mbeki’s last presidential foreign policy feat was to usher in a “government of national unity”. This combined the brutal victors with the more innocent co-governors, who took up the poisoned chalice of sharing an already deeply corrupted state.
If 2008’s blend of extreme violence and regional complicity wasn’t election rigging, what could be?
By the July 2013 electoral charade, ZANU-PF had learned all the tricks. The government of national unity’s “roadmap” election reforms was never completed. When the key South African mediator Lindiwe Zulu mooted postponing the race until the field was level (or maybe advising the MDC to pull out), Mugabe told Jacob Zuma to shut the “street woman” up. The latter complied.
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