THE MDC accuses ZANU PF of rigging every major election held since 2000

By Regerai Marwezu and Patricia Mpofu 

HARARE - Zimbabwe opposition parties on Wednesday accused the government of attempting to rig next year’s elections even before a single ballot was cast by instructing officials to turn away thousands of opposition supporters wishing to register for the polls. 

The two factions of the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party said thousands of potential voters in the party’s strongholds and youths, known for their dislike of the government, had been denied permission to register in an ongoing exercise to register voters for the joint presidential and parliamentary elections. 

The Registrar General’s department had also opened few voter registration centres in urban areas that are hotbeds of opposition support in what the MDC and the smaller United People’s Party (UPP) charged was a ploy by the government to gain an unfair advantage by ensuring fewer opposition supporters were able to register to vote. 

“We have encountered a plethora of obstacles. People suspected of being sympathetic to the MDC are being denied the chance to register . . . this is a nationwide problem,” said Nelson Chamisa, spokesman of the main faction of the MDC led by Morgan Tsvangirai. 

Chamisa said in rural areas chiefs and other traditional leaders, who are well known for their loyalty to President Robert Mugabe and his ruling ZANU PF party had been tasked to screen and vet people wishing to register and opposition supporters were being blocked by the chiefs. 

Registrar General Tobaiwa Mudede dismissed as false and the “usual game of complaining by the opposition” charges that his officials were denying the opposition supporters the chance to register to vote. 

However, opposition leaders were adamant that the voter registration exercise was skewed in order to ensure fewer of their supporters were eligible to vote next year. 

For example, Abednico Bhebhe, who is a legislator and deputy spokesman for the smaller faction of the MDC led by Arthur Mutambara, said in his constituency of Nkayi in Matabeleland North province, some registration officials were telling villagers that the current exercise was to register people wanting national identity documents and not voters. 

“We feel this is an anomaly when people should be getting registered to vote next year,” said Bhebhe. 

The UPP’s director of elections, Anthony Kundishora, told ZimOnline: "Scores of our supporters particularly youths who have just turned 18 have approached our offices complaining that they have been denied the chance to register." 

The voter registration exercise began on the 18th of this month and will end on August 17 this year. 

Political analysts say Mugabe’s government could lose next year’s poll because of a deep economic recession that has spawned hyperinflation, poverty and severe shortages of food, fuel, hard cash and just about every basic survival commodity. 

Mugabe and ZANU PF, in power since Zimbabwe’s 1980 independence from Britain, have lost support in urban areas where the economic crisis has hit hardest. However, the veteran President and his party still enjoy residual support in rural areas. 

The MDC, which insists the political field is heavily tilted in favour of Mugabe and ZANU PF, has said it will wait for the outcome of South African President Thabo Mbeki-led talks before deciding whether to contest next year’s polls. 

Mbeki was last March appointed by Southern African Development Community (SADC) leaders to head efforts to seek a solution to Zimbabwe's seven-year old political impasse between Mugabe’s ZANU PF and the MDC. 

The SADC brokered dialogue is among other issues expected to tackle the question of levelling of the political field and elimination of political violence to ensure next year’s polls are credible and truly democratic. - ZimOnline