PRESIDENT Mugabe . . . sought help of the Israelis to rig vote

HARARE – Zimbabwe’s main opposition party on Thursday accused President Robert Mugabe’s government of contracting an Israeli technology firm to help rig tomorrow’s elections. 

Tendai Biti, who is secretary general of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party, told journalists in Harare that the firm, Cogniview PL, was offering technical support to the Harare authorities to help rig the elections. 

“Mugabe and his cronies intend to steal this election through the use of sophisticated software provided by the Israeli company with Mossad (Israeli intelligence agency) connections. 

“ZEC (the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission) is not running this election but it is being run by Mudede (Registrar-General Tobaiwa) and the CIO (Central Intelligence Organisation spy agency) with the help of the Israelis,” said Biti. 

Zimbabweans go to the polls tomorrow to elect a new president, parliamentarians and local government representatives amid shrills of protests from the MDC that Mugabe was out to fix the election result. 

Mugabe, whom the opposition accuses of cheating his way to victory in the last presidential election in 2002, has fiercely rejected charges that he was planning to rig the poll. 

The MDC secretary general said the opposition party had unearthed massive discrepancies on the voters’ register with, for example, as many as 75 voters having been registered as staying at one house. 

The opposition party has also raised concern over the printing of over three million extra ballot papers for the election by ZEC and the existence of thousands of “ghost voters” on the voters’ register. 

Attempts by ZimOnline to get comment from Cogniview yesterday were not successful. 

But information gleaned from its website showed that the Israeli firm, which is led by a team of experts in the fields of artificial intelligence, information retrieval and software engineering, was a leading provider of data conversion software. 

The firm said it also helped individuals and organisations to understand, utilise and maximize the benefits of their data assets. 

Mugabe is facing his biggest electoral test in the polls from Tsvangirai and his former finance minister Simba Makoni. 

The 84-year old Mugabe who was re-elected in a controversial election in 2002 that was dismissed as flawed by Western governments, has promised a thunderous victory against Tsvangirai and Makoni whom he says are stooges of former colonial master Britain. 

The MDC last week raised fears that Mugabe, who is lagging behind Tsvangirai in opinion polls, could resort to outright rigging to stay in power raising prospects of violent protests from desperate Zimbabweans eager to see change. 

Mugabe last Wednesday however told an election campaign rally in Nyanga that the opposition should be prepared to accept the election result warning that security forces were ready to crush any post-election upheaval. - ZimOnline