I’ve heard things that have amazed me this past week, literally left me dumfounded and thunderstruck, at the depths of African delusion and our own talent for self-deception. I heard on radio remarks attributed to Zimbabwe’s ever embattled Prime Minister and President of the Movement for Democratic Change, Morgan Tsvangirai, key opposition figure to Zimbabwe’s long time and current President Robert Mugabe who’s been in power for the last 26 years.
When referring to Zimbabwe’s Presidential ballot, Tsvangirai reportedly said; “the election was heavily manipulated and did not meet regional or African election standards.” When I got home, I rushed over to my computer and googled that self-same phrase, thinking that some media personage had gotten creative with Tsvangirai words and written as he/she saw fit.
However when Google returned some 30,000,000 hits in under 60 seconds, I accepted that in all likelihood these words were indeed Tsvangirai’s. What astonished me was not his reference to the vote being unduly influenced, but his statement that described it as “…not meeting regional or African elections standards”. I asked myself, “What standards is he referring to?”
In all fairness, I know that Morgan Tsvangirai was making reference to the Southern African Development Community Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections. Which state that SADC Member States shall adhere to the following principles in the conduct of democratic elections; full participation of the citizens in the political process, freedom of association, political tolerance, regular intervals for elections as provided for by the respective National Constitutions, equal opportunity for all political parties to access the state media, equal opportunity to exercise the right to vote and be voted for, independence of the Judiciary and impartiality of the electoral institutions, voter education, acceptance and respect of the election results by political parties proclaimed to have been free and fair by the competent National Electoral Authorities in accordance with the law of the land and the right to challenge election results as provided for in the law of the land.
If a standard is “any norm, convention or requirement” then strictly speaking Tsvangirai’s comments fall into the category of correct. We have a regional convention that is enshrined within the SADC Treaty and that is backed by the Charter and Conventions of the Organization of African Unity (African Union) and the United Nations. However, if we regard a political standard as a norm ÔÇô something that is usual and/or typical ÔÇô then his allegation that there was fraudulent activity within the context of the Zimbabwean Presidential election shouldn’t surprise anyone. The fact that Africa now holds more ‘democratic elections’ then ever-before is often taken a measure of democratic progress and maturity. The fact that there have been a number of elections held recently on the continent that were NOT marred by violence has become the measure of success. However, Africa and African politics have become more sophisticated, perhaps not at the same rate as the rest of the world but certainly gone are the days of outright intimidation and stuffed ballot boxes. We are used to witnessing electoral fraud that occurs during or immediately after election campaigns ÔÇô conducted through interference with the voting process or the counting of votes.
However it can also transpire in advance, through the alteration of the composition of the electorate (through the sophisticated and computerized manipulation of voter rolls as Morgan Tsvangirai, the prime minister, alleged back in early July when he lodged an objection with regard to the activities of a Tel Aviv-based technology firm after research showed drastic changes to the numbers on the roll and anomalies in the distribution of voters). In many cases this is not illegal and thus technically not electoral fraud, although it is a violation of the principles of democracy. So going back to SADC’s Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections and The SADC’s observer mission statements that described the Zimbabwean election as “free and peaceful”, there was no utilization by SADC of the term “fair”. In SADC’s defense, the regional body probably did not have the resources or capacity to monitor the entirety of the Zimbabwean electoral process, thus they did what they could. Unfortunately this has made the body appear weak and ineffective and as having legitimized the just ended disputed election. Botswana has come out strongly against the results of the Zimbabwean election, hence our current position as SADC renegade and troublemaker. But really, are we any better? Should we not make sure our own backyard garden is in order before we trounce the Mugabe regime?
In November 2008 Botswana announced to the world on BBC’s HardTalk that SADC had failed Zimbabweans. That the when body as well as the African Union and the African Parliamentary Union observer missions concluded that the second round Zimbabwe Presidential election (held because no candidate received an outright majority in the first round) won by Robert Mugabe were “neither free nor fair”, that SADC and the AU should have taken harsher measures, suspended the Mugabe regime and lastly, we suggested that Zimbabwe’s borders should have been closed, isolating Mugabe and his Ministers. We claimed that we backed the “extra-legal, meaning outside the law” negations facilitated and mediated by SADC that led to the formation of a Zimbabwean Government of National Unity because we feared that violence and chaos would erupt in Zimbabwe, for no other reason. But if we look at our own circumstances, have we not done the same? Have we not in the past cheated on and trampled on the precepts of democracy when, instead of allowing the vote to be decided in a democratic fashion, we instead cobbled together leadership at the party level through “compromise’ lists? In our 2009 general election, the Botswana Congress Party threatened to take the Independent Electoral Commission to court after police officers and polling officers who had to conduct and oversee the elections on 16 October, were unable to vote early due to printing error at the┬áHYPERLINK “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannesburg” \o “Johannesburg”Johannesburg┬ábased printer that resulted in ballot numbers – which are supposed to be unique to counter election fraud – being sometimes repeated on the ballots for local elections. Resulting in police officers and polling officers having had to vote on 16 October, along with the general public. For officers stationed far away from the place they were registered to vote, this was a problem. For over a decade now, reports of candidates at the party primary level, ferrying voters from one constituency to another so as to bolster their ballots, have abounded. Is there as prescribed by SADC’s voting principles, “equal opportunity for all political parties to access the state media”? And what of the allegations of vote buying or the extortion of funds from business people for the purposes of funding campaigns? These days electoral fraud and misconduct often occur far in advance of actual general elections and have become harder to prevent, detect, prove and punish. Furthermore, the law in this regard is often left playing catch-up. This maybe what happened in Zimbabwe, in which case observer missions arrived far too late to be of any use to anyone. Election season is upon us therefore ‘observation’ must begin now, because later is just that. Too late.
