SANF 05 no 25
All is set for the parliamentary elections in Zimbabwe on Thursday, 31 March, including a large and growing contingent of local and international observers, and journalists.
More than 500 international observers had been accredited by last week but the number continued to grow through the Easter weekend, with the arrival of delegations from the African Union, and from governments and political parties in neighbouring countries such as Malawi and the United Republic of Tanzania.
Observer groups from the South African parliament and the African National Congress (ANC) of South Africa were already in place, and members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Observer Mission were also deployed throughout the country last week with the mandate to observe the elections.
Zimbabwe is the first country to formally align its legal structure for elections with the Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections, approved last year by SADC heads of state and government.
The training of constituency election officers, polling officers and presiding officers has been completed during the Easter weekend, and they will be deployed on Tuesday to more than 8,000 polling stations in 120 constituencies countrywide
A total of 50,000 translucent ballot boxes have been dispatched to the provinces for onward delivery to the constituencies.
Printing of ballot papers was completed last week, and postal ballots have been distributed under the watchful eyes of all contending parties. A total of 5,789,912 Zimbabweans have registered to vote.
More than 200 local observers have been accredited, as well as thousands of political party electoral agents who will be present at all polling stations.
A national results centre has been established at the Harare International Conference Centre where the incoming election results will be announced to the media. Counting will take place at the polling stations after the polls close on Thursday night at 7pm.
The chairperson of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), Justice George Chiweshe has said that all results should be posted by next weekend, within 48 hours after the close of polling stations on Thursday night.
There is also a national multiparty liaison committee in place, made up of all the political parties and independent candidates contesting the election, to act as a safety valve in conflict resolution.
However, the only parties interested in conflict seem to be some sectors of the international media who, having found none of the violence they expected to occur, have been seeking other entry points.
Absent from Zimbabwe are the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the Voice of America (VOA) and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), who are barred from covering the parliamentary elections in Zimbabwe for “lying”.
However, other media from Britain, including Independent Television (ITV), Sky Television, and several newspapers have been accredited and allowed free access throughout the country, as has the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).
In each case of those outlets refused accreditation, the Zimbabwe government has cited their official and known links to the governments of Britain, the USA and Australia that have adopted a “hostile” position towards Zimbabwe.
“We don’t mind criticism of the party or the government,” said Dr Nathan Shamuyarira, the ZANU-PF Secretary for Information and Publicity. “But what we won’t tolerate are the lies that have been told by the BBC and the official media in other countries.”
Some local wags have taken to calling the BBC, the Blair Broadcasting Corporation, a reflection of ZANU-PF’s dispute with the British prime minister, Tony Blair, which has become an election issue.
The elections have gone well so far, with no substantiated reports of violence, political intimidation or opportunities for vote rigging. And that is the way that the government wants to keep it.
So when the BBC submitted a list of 40 names, later whittled down to l6, for media accreditation, the government was immediately suspicious.
“They want to come and report on violence, but we don’t have any. They want to come and report on deaths through starvation, but we don’t have any. It’s very easy though to show an AIDS victim as starving. So they will have to resort to lying and that is not acceptable,” said Shamuyarira.
Clearly, the government saw the presence of 40 BBC staff as likely to inflame the situation, as an African election is seldom news in the UK and a bit of violence and starvation may be needed to boost the story onto the main television newscasts.
Now Sky News has fallen into this trap by quoting the Bulawayo Archbishop, Pius Ncube, a well-known opponent of ZANU-PF, as saying people are starving in Matabeleland in the west of the country and calling for a “Ukraine-style” insurrection.
“They should have challenged Ncube to produce some of those he claimed were starving,” said Shamuyarira, adding that drought relief distribution of food was already well underway.
He said this allegation was expected, after the refusal of the Zimbabwe government to accept food aid from the international community. He noted however, that this refusal was in line with a decision of regional heads of state and government to look after their own food security within the SADC region, through redistribution to areas of drought from areas of plenty. (SARDC)
