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X. Flaws in the Electoral Process in the Run Up to March Elections

Performance of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission

The ZEC is the body that oversees general elections in Zimbabwe. It directs and controls the registration of voters, compiles the voters’ roll, and keeps the public informed of other electoral issues such as the delimitation of constituencies. The Electoral Laws Amendment Act of 2007 widened the responsibilities of the commission: the responsibilities for delimiting wards and constituencies, and of keeping the voter’s roll, are new, as is the function of accrediting observers.¹⁰⁴ Despite these greater responsibilities, the commission was given little time—about three months—to prepare for the March 2008 polls including implementing its new responsibilities, and is under-resourced.¹⁰⁵ 

The ZEC is composed of a chairman who under the Constitution of Zimbabwe must be a judge of the high court, and six other members who are appointed by the president from a list of nine nominations.¹⁰⁶ According to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission Act, the commission also “endeavors to establish such provincial and district offices as will enable it to exercise its functions more efficiently throughout Zimbabwe.”¹⁰⁷

Commission composition issues

The ZEC has faced controversy since its formation in 2005, with charges that it is biased toward ZANU-PF and dominated by ZANU-PF sympathizers.¹⁰⁸ In its report on the 2005 parliamentary elections, Human Rights Watch expressed serious concerns about the independence and impartiality of the commission.¹⁰⁹ Human Rights Watch questioned the composition of the commission and detailed how there were no adequate restrictions preventing high-ranking political party officeholders from being appointed as commissioners. The independence and impartiality of ZEC was questioned by human rights organizations and the nongovernmental Zimbabwe Electoral Support Network early on in the 2008 election voter registration process.¹¹⁰

In September 2007 the Constitutional Amendment Act No. 18 legislated for changes to the composition of the commission to be put in place before the 2008 elections.¹¹¹  However, despite those amendments the impartiality and independence of the electoral commission is undermined by some of the provisions of the electoral laws that do not meet SADC standards that there be “impartiality of the electoral institutions.”¹¹² For example, the state president continues to exercise too much control over the composition of the commission, there is excessive ministerial intervention, and there are inadequate safeguards to prevent partisanship on the part of commissioners.

The Electoral Laws Amendment Act prohibits the secondment of military and civil servants and all other uniformed forces to ZEC and calls for the commission to have its own employees as opposed to military officers temporarily brought in from the army.¹¹³ However, the proposed overhauls came too late in the day to have a significant impact on ZEC and the election preparations, particularly the voter registration process. For example, there were no significant changes to the personnel and staff of the commission, in particular former or serving military officials.  The chairman of ZEC, Justice George Chiweshe, is a former military officer, and was also head of the commission during Zimbabwe’s flawed 2005 elections.¹¹⁴ The opposition also informed Human Rights Watch that the official in charge of the ZEC in Manicaland province was a sitting military officer.¹¹⁵

In September 2007, 10 villagers in Manicaland and Masvingo provinces informed Human Rights Watch that the ZEC officials responsible for overseeing the mobile voter registration process were either former or retired military officers or in other cases military officers transferred to work at the ZEC for set periods of time.¹¹⁶ Others were reportedly from the CIO or plainclothes policemen. Of the 10 villagers, five were volunteer registration officers involved in the mobile voter registration process.

Human Rights Watch interviewed two volunteer registration officers involved in the mobile voter registration process in Tsonzo area, Manicaland province, and Bikita area, Masvingo province, who alleged that they had been trained by ZEC officials whom they later discovered were military officers.¹¹⁷ One of the registration officers alleged that most of the ZEC officials working in her area were from the military because her education officer (the officer responsible for training the registration officers on the mobile registration process) warned her to be careful about what she said in the presence of all ZEC officials because some were security personnel. The other registration officer claimed that he knew that the ZEC was composed of military and intelligence officers after he established friendships with some of the officers during the two-month training course for all registration officers.

In another example, a human rights activist in Harare informed Human Rights Watch that when he went to check his name on the voter’s register in September, at the Mablereign voter registration office in Harare, he noticed that uniformed police were in the registration room and also playing an active role in checking the names of voters.¹¹⁸

The alleged presence of military officers (including former officers) and police personnel in the ZEC raises serious questions about its impartiality and independence and also causes unnecessary fear and tension amongst the voting population. The location of ZEC offices in some provinces is also of concern. For example, MDC officials in Mutare South informed Human Rights Watch that ZEC officials there were housed in government offices.¹¹⁹ Opposition officials told Human Rights Watch that as a result of the location, people were scared to take any complaints they had to commission officials because of the high number of officers from Zimbabwe’s Central Intelligence Organization at the government building.

Despite the fact that they are responsible for compiling complaints about the electoral process, ZEC officials have proved reluctant to speak officially to key stakeholders including the opposition and officials from the ZESN.  According to Noel Kututwa, chair of ZESN, “We haven’t been able to meet with ZEC officially. They refuse to meet us, so we haven’t been able to raise any of our concerns. The fact that they are inaccessible means they aren’t quite as independent as they claim.”¹²⁰ This sentiment was echoed by MDC spokesperson Nelson Chamisa, who told Human Rights Watch, “ZEC have refused to meet us on several occasions. We have letters from them that state that they cannot meet with us.”¹²¹

Other problems with voter registration and inspection of the voters’ roll

Zimbabwe’s voter registration process officially started on June 17, 2007, when the government announced a mobile voter registration exercise to allow voters who were not registered to vote, or had moved to new constituencies to register themselves as voters. The mobile registration process was run by ZEC, and run concurrently with the issuing of identity cards (IDs) to those that do not have them (all Zimbabweans are required to have an identity card in order to vote) by the office of the Registrar General.  Voter registration at stationery registration offices for the purposes of participating in the election commenced on February 2, 2008 and closed on February 14, 2008 (see below).¹²²

From the start, the mobile voter registration exercise was beset by significant problems including a lack of resources and materials for the exercise, and the disenfranchisement of potential voters. In all the provinces visited by Human Rights Watch in September 2007 and February 2008 mobile voter registration was poorly advertised with few people aware that the exercise was taking place (Andy Moyes, director of the MMPZ, informed Human Rights Watch that the list of places to register to vote only appeared once in the Herald newspaper).¹²³ In addition, due to the fact that in some places  the mobile registration sites were open only for a brief period, and often operated on irregular hours or closed at whim, many people told Human Rights Watch that they did not know where and when to register, and may have been excluded from the process altogether.

In the provinces of Mashonaland West, Masvingo, and Matabeleland South, villagers told Human Rights Watch that in some cases information about mobile registration sites and hours was provided only to people whose political affiliation was known.¹²⁴ Activists from ZESN told Human Rights Watch that they had received credible reports of people only being allowed to register if they had ruling party membership cards.¹²⁵ Although Human Rights Watch was unable to verify these claims in many of the provinces it visited, villagers in one constituency of Matabeleland South and in another constituency in Masvingo province informed Human Rights Watch that ZEC officers had asked them for their ruling party cards to register to vote.¹²⁶ However, it was not clear whether those who did not have the cards were excluded from the voter registration process.

The mobile voter registration process was also not consistently conducted in all the constituencies. In some areas, particularly opposition strongholds, officials from the Registrar General’s office issued people with IDs and then told them that they would only be allowed to register to vote at a later date. In other areas (almost all of them ruling party strongholds), the process was much clearer with people provided with IDs and then almost immediately allowed to register. In several constituencies that Human Rights Watch visited in Masvingo villagers claimed that no mobile voter registration had taken place at all.

In areas known to be opposition strongholds, in particular parts of Matabeleland and Manicaland, Human Rights Watch found that the procedures to get an ID and to register to vote were much more stringent, with people required to provide copies of birth certificates and permission from kraal chiefs, and to produce two witnesses to verify their identity when copies of birth certificates and permission from the kraal chief would have sufficed. In these areas there were also specific problems with the registration of young people of voting age.  On four separate occasions in the provinces of Manicaland, Matbeleland South, and Matabeleland North, 10 young people in total informed Human Rights Watch that they were turned away from registration sites because of the stringent requirements such as the need for permission from kraal chiefs and witnesses.¹²⁷  In contrast, the registration requirements for older people were not as stringent.  ZESN officials confirmed that many young people had been turned away from registration sites: ZESN believed that the young people were turned away because they were widely perceived by the ruling party and government officials as being more likely to vote for the opposition.¹²⁸

To the government’s credit, the mobile voter registration was extended by another two months from August to October because of the many logistical problems and poor publicity surrounding the process. However, the operations of the ZEC in many provinces, in particular the rural provinces remained patchy and inconsistent throughout the registration period.

On February 2, 2008, the ZEC announced the commencement of the second voter registration exercise and the inspection of the voters’ roll at an estimated 5,000 inspection centers. Those not covered by the mobile registration exercise were able to register as voters, check their names or rectify any errors in their details. However, the inspection centers had only been designated on January 30, just two days before the process actually started, leaving little time for people to find out where they could check their names.¹²⁹ Further, ZESN reported that they were no ZEC voter educators informing people about the exercise prior to the commencement of the inspection period.

Minimal Voter Education

The complexity of Zimbabwe’s first synchronized presidential and parliamentary elections, which require voters to simultaneously cast four different ballot papers on the same day, makes voter education an extremely important element of the electoral process. However, there seems to be very little understanding around the country about the conduct of the elections that will be taking place. Less than two months before the elections, Human Rights Watch interviewed 30 people in the provinces of Manicaland and Matabeleland North and South in February 2008, who said that although they were aware that elections were taking place, they did not know which wards they would be voting in or that they would vote in four separate elections in one day.  According to a ZESN election monitor from Lupane, “People have no idea how these elections will be conducted. They don’t even know that the elections will take place in one day. They keep saying they are four separate elections, so we will vote over four days. Very little information is out there.”¹³⁰

Under the Electoral Amendment Act, the ZEC should commence a voter education program not later than 90 days before polling day.¹³¹ However, Human Rights Watch visited numerous areas in Zimbabwe’s provinces and found that very little voter education was taking place. Many people informed Human Rights Watch that they had not seen any ZEC officers in their areas.  ZEC officers were observed carrying out voter education exercises in the main cities of Harare and Bulawayo but not in the rural areas, where such education is especially necessary given the lack of media access and the lower literacy rate of voters. ZESN officials did note an increase in the number of voter education officers deployed by ZEC around the country in the weeks before the elections. However, ZESN argued that the information provided by the voter education officers was often inaccurate or not extensive enough.¹³²

The lack of voter education by the ZEC has been criticized by MMPZ, which pointed out that there was little publication of information for voters on the complicated electoral process. MMPZ noted that all 53 voter education advertisements that the organization had monitored on the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation in the week commencing February 10 were placed by private bodies.¹³³

The SADC Principles and Guidelines call for voter education programs to be carried out.¹³⁴ The lack of basic voter education activities by the ZEC is of even greater concern given that the ZEC has been given almost exclusive control over voter education. Under the September 2007 constitutional amendments, the ZEC has been given the powers to monitor voter education provided by other organizations for correctness and impartiality,¹³⁵ and the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission Act provides that no person other than the commission, or a political party or a person appointed by the commission, shall provide voter education unless the person meets stringent requirements.¹³⁶ 

While the commission has an express duty to monitor voter education, in theory it may direct that voter education activity be modified or cease only when the commission considers content false or misleading.¹³⁷ However, as ZESN chairperson Noel Kututwa informed Human Rights Watch, the ZEC has not limited its role to preventing “misleading” education. He explained that on February 23, the ZEC banned his organization from carrying out voter education because under the new laws the ZEC had a monopoly over voter education. According to ZESN, ZESN adverts deemed to be direct voter education were scrapped from the electronic and print media following a letter from the ZEC asserting that the law only allowed the conducting of voter education by institutions authorized to do so by the ZEC. This was despite the fact that according to Kututwa, ZESN has carried out voter education during past elections in 2005 without actually applying for permission from ZEC.  Kututwa said, “We have always had an understanding with ZEC that we would be allowed to carry out voter education.”¹³⁸

On February 28 the Herald reported that the ZEC had started licensing civic organizations ahead of the elections.¹³⁹ The ZEC public relations director Shupikai Mashereni was quoted as saying that the body was still considering applications from civic organizations such as ZPP and ZESN.

On March 12 Kututwa told Human Rights Watch that ZESN had applied for permission to conduct voter education soon after the ban, but they were still waiting for approval from ZEC. He told Human Rights Watch, “We have tried to have meetings with ZEC who say they will look into it and get back to us. We are becoming disillusioned because we don’t think we will get the permission to carry out voter education.”¹⁴⁰

Restrictions on International Electoral Observers

Since the presidential election in 2002 the government has used selective and in effect discriminatory practices in inviting local and international electoral observers.  International electoral observers such as the Commonwealth Electoral Observer Mission and the SADC Parliamentary Forum Electoral Observer Mission, which issued critical statements on the 2002 election, were not invited for the 2005 elections.¹⁴¹ In a statement in the Herald on February 22, 2008, Minister of Information and Publicity Sikhanyiso Ndlovu made it clear that with respect to the upcoming elections only international observers deemed friendly to the government would be invited.¹⁴² This is not compatible with the SADC Principles and Guidelines, which state that one of the rights of electoral observers is to gain accreditation as electoral observers on a nondiscriminatory basis. The biased nature of observer accreditation in Zimbabwe dilutes the transparency and credibility of the elections.

Unfortunately, such bias has not been remedied by the new legal provisions governing elections. Under Zimbabwe’s amended electoral laws, the ZEC now decides who can be accredited as an observer and who can be invited. The Electoral Laws Amendment Act provides for the ZEC to establish a committee to accredit observers, foreign and local.¹⁴³ However, as the presence of a foreign observer in the country is dependent on an invitation from the Minister of Foreign Affairs to observe an election, the executive arm of the government still has the power to decide the composition of accredited observer missions.

The SADC Principles and Guidelines also recommend that the government should issue invitations to electoral observers 90 days before election day to “allow adequate preparation for the deployment of the Electoral Observer Mission.”¹⁴⁴  But, just over a month before the elections, there was no clear indication of which, if any, international observers had been invited for the elections. By February 22—weeks after the critical period of voter registration had begun—no international observers were on the ground, and ZEC only announced a period of accreditation from February 19.  On March 7 Minister of Foreign Affairs Simbarashe Mumbengengwi announced a list of 47 teams to observe the elections.¹⁴⁵ About 50 members of a 120-strong SADC Observer Mission arrived on March 10.¹⁴⁶

The necessity of electoral observation to commence at an early stage of the process is underlined by the fact that, as in past elections, hostile conditions likely to impact on the ability of Zimbabweans to vote freely have been observed weeks if not months before the elections.