4. Violence before and during the March 2002 Presidential election
President Mugabe set the tone for the Presidential elections when at the ZANU (PF) Congress in December 2001 he told party members to treat the following year's election campaign as a "total war". He said party members must regard themselves as soldiers. "Where we are going, it is not like the June 2000 parliamentary elections, which was like a football game where I was centre striker. This is total war, the Third Chimurenga [uprising]." He also branded city and town dwellers "sell-outs" for voting for the MDC.
Disorder and violence increased in the run-up to the Presidential election in March 2002. According to the Human Rights NGO Forum, at least 16 politically motivated murders were reported in January and February 2002. ZANU PF militias set up roadblocks in rural areas throughout the country, harassing travellers who were unable to produce party membership cards. Teachers were attacked, leading to the closing of 35 schools in Masvingo Province alone. Large parts of the country were declared to be "no-go" areas for MDC supporters.
Militia bases were set up in the run-up to the poll and remained operational with the acquiescence of the State. Nothing was done to ensure that these bases were dismantled and prosecutions were not instituted against those responsible for human rights violations committed in them. In one notable case, a High Court order had to be sought to ensure the release of a prominent labour leader and his wife who had been kidnapped in February and held for a month at one of the bases.
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The Stolen Presidential Election
President Mugabe, ZANU PF and their supporters went to extraordinary lengths in order to secure an election victory in the just end presidential poll. The election failed to meet the fundamental requirements of the Constitution of Zimbabwe.
The Constitution requires that Zimbabwe's President be elected every 6 years through elections supervised by the Electoral Supervisory Commission, the ESC. The ESC reported that it was not able to supervise the election, and was not permitted observe key aspects of the process that were conducted through a secret Command Centre from which the ESC was excluded.
Top election officials were listed to be amongst special beneficiaries from the land acquisitions if Mugabe won the election. There was also a curios development whereby the ESC was staffed with army personnel known to be loyal to the ruling party.
The Constitution requires the President to be chosen by the registered voters. All Zimbabweans are eligible to register as voters.
31 It requires that the procedure for the registration of voters and actual voting be prescribed in an Act of Parliament. Mugabe by Notice personally altered the law and stripped hundreds of thousands of registered voters of their right to vote. He effectively took away the postal voting rights of thousands of registered voters who for one reason or the other were not in their constituency or unable to go to a polling station during the voting days. This move was particularly targeted at those voters residing outside the country and restricted the postal vote to the armed forces, diplomats and polling officials, whom he anticipated would vote overwhelmingly for him.
Mugabe also took away voting rights from, predominantly White, voters, black- listed by the Registrar-General, without a hearing, although a High Court judge had ruled against the Registrar-General. Effectively all permanent residents who had voted in the June 2000 parliamentary election were dies-enfranchised by this latest move. Which move seems to have no historical precedent or constitutional justification.
All voters who had spent in excess of eight hours waiting and were still in the queues at polling stations on Sunday and Monday evening in Harare were denied the vote, although the Registrar General's office had primarily caused the delays by disregarding the Supreme Court order directing that Municipal elections be held prior to the Presidential election.
It is apparent that administrative hitches were experience amongst groups known to be largely sympathetic to the opposition. Mugabe's actions in disenfranchising these groups were not only unconstitutional but a betrayal of fundamental rights and ideals of the liberation struggle.
In the ultimate analysis, the Presidential election was neither free nor fair. It violated every single one of the SADC-PF standards accepted by Zimbabwe. The right to a free and fair election is not merely the right of the contestants but of the people. A free and fair election was precluded for many reasons, in addition to the above and the prevailing violence. Many people had no access to any alternative views. The police prevented the opposition MDC from holding rallies. The State-controlled media (still operating its unconstitutional monopoly in radio and television) ran a propaganda campaign in favour of Mr Mugabe. The heads of the security forces made it clear they would not accept the opposition candidate if he won the election.
ZANU PF manipulated the electoral law extensively Mugabe's favour. The voters' roll was kept secret and a shambles and many voters were effectively disenfranchised. Urban dwellers, most of whom supported the opposition candidate, were discouraged or prevented from voting through restrictions in the number of polling stations. The ESC had to rely on monitors chosen by government and the number of independent observers allowed to monitor the election was severely limited. There were also indications of vote rigging.
Coupled with the introduction of many new rural mobile voting stations, Mugabe had personally ordered that the wooden ballot boxes must not be sealed on the base, sides or hinges, but only on the aperture on top, changing the law on this after Parliament had voted against the change. There could be no legitimate reason for this.
All this vitiated the legitimacy of Mugabe's victory and thereby launched Zimbabwe into a serious crisis of legitimacy. Both the process and outcome of the election violated every aspect of the SADC-PF Norms and Standards for free and fair elections. It seems trite that the economic decline and political instability described above can not be arrested without resolving the issue of the stolen election .The stolen election raises a new dimension to the Zimbabwean crisis namely, that of legitimacy
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Footnotes:
- Report for 1-15 March 2002, issued by Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum.
- This includes Zimbabweans living outside the country for the purposes of study and other related reasons.
- The crisis of legitimacy extends to the presidency of Mr.Mugabe, his government's actions and policies. It brings into serious dispute the regional political leadership's commitment to democracy and political pluralism.
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