ELECTORAL reforms before the 2018 elections seem to be a mirage as the government has not demonstrated commitment to implement new constitutional provisions to ensure that elections will be held in a manner satisfactory to all stakeholders.
BY VENERANDA LANGA
This emerged during a meeting of civic society groups — including the Southern Africa Parliamentary Support Trust (SAPST) and the Zimbabwe Institute (ZI) — and the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Justice to discuss a petition by the Elections Resource Centre (ERC) and 14 other civic society groups in Bulawayo recently.
The groups are pushing for an efficient and swift alignment of the Electoral Act with the new governance charter to ensure the credibility of next year’s plebiscite.
The petition, which was presented to delegates at the workshop by ERC director Tawanda Chiminhi, highlights that the processes and pace of substantive electoral legal reform has been too slow given that the Constitution was adopted in 2013.
Civic society groups said they were alarmed by the administrative lethargy in government and the piecemeal approach to the review of the electoral law to ensure it conforms to international and regional standards, norms and principles.
The petition was sent to Parliament in September 2015, but was only discussed last weekend, prompting the Speaker of the National Assembly Jacob Mudenda to express dismay that such an important matter was being discussed 12 months before next year’s elections.
Chimhini said they were appealing to the legislature to relook the entire electoral system presided over by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec).
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“Your petitioners appeal to Parliament to take into account issues for the democratic overhaul of Zimbabwe’s Electoral law to enhance the independence of the Zec, review all legislation that negatively impacts on the political environment, hence, on the electoral processes and its outcomes, review provisions relating to voters registration and the voters’ roll to ensure they enhance credibility of Zimbabwean elections, and enhance voter education by creating more space for stakeholders other than Zec,” he said.
“There is need to extend the franchise to the right to vote to all citizens of Zimbabwe, wherever they may be and to reconstitute the Electoral Court in compliance with the Constitution. There is need to ensure that the invitation of Election observers is an exclusive function of the body entrusted with the conduct of the polls and to enhance the role of Zec in electoral boundary delimitation,” he said.
Other demands by civic society as presented by Law Society of Zimbabwe executive secretary, Edward Mapara, are that institutions like traditional and security service chiefs must be regulated by a code of conduct during elections so that they do not meddle in politics in a partisan manner.
In the past, there have been allegations of traditional leaders in rural areas frog-marching their subjects to vote for Zanu PF, while some security chiefs publicly declared their allegiance to Zanu PF and President Robert Mugabe, while scoffing at other presidential aspirants as lacking liberation war credentials.
President of the Chiefs Council Fortune Charumbira said chiefs will never be guided by any code of conduct and dismissed claims that the traditional leaders force-marched people to vote for Zanu PF during elections.
“As chiefs sometimes we are attacked because we have bogus chiefs, and those things that you sometimes come across during elections have nothing to do with (genuine) chiefs. Some are pedestrian chiefs that can be hired and they misbehave and then you suggest that a code of conduct must be crafted for chiefs,” he said.
“I have not heard of a code of conduct for chiefs in the Constitution. It is better to say there be an Integrity and Ethics Committee for chiefs because it is demeaning for chiefs to give it the name ‘code of conduct’.”
Charumbira claimed no civic group has ever approached his council to lodge a formal complaint.
A Zimbabwe Republic Police assistant commissioner, Naison Chivayo, said they already have their moral code which details that the police should diligently, courteously execute their duties without fear or favour.
He described the Public Order and Security Act (Posa) — which opposition parties said was meant to curtail their operations and the rights to assemble and demonstrate — as a good law.
“Demonstrations have been hijacked by malcontents to the extent of violence generating and leading to the loss of life and property, disturbing vehicular and pedestrian traffic. Therefore, Posa ensures public gatherings do not impinge on rights of others,” Chivayo said.
Legislators Jessie Majome (Harare West), Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga (MDC proportional representation) and Innocent Gonese (MDC-T chief whip in the National Assembly) called on state broadcaster Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) to give coverage to all political parties and contestants in elections.
Misihairabwi-Mushonga also raised the issue of electoral violence saying women were the ones that bore the brunt of electoral violence which also discourages them from contesting elections or even registering to vote.
Constitutional law expert Lovemore Madhuku, however, said everything raised in the petition by the civic society groups is already covered by the law.
“There will be a few issues that require amendment but many issues that you have raised in the petition are already in the law. However, law making is an exclusively political process and it means that you ought to push those with political power to change certain things,” he said.
He said the Constitution is clear on the independence of Zec, for instance, and added that there were very few things in the Electoral Act that did not promote the independence of Zec. He said civic society needs to specify the exact issues they want amended in the electoral laws.
Madhuku said the Electoral Act and Constitution provided a lot of the changes that civic society wants before elections, adding what has been lacking in Zimbabwe is enforcement of the law by the Executive, police force and other institutions that civic society wants their conduct checked during elections.
“The bulk of the issues in the petition are already catered for in the current law. It is the political will to do some of those things that is not there and civic society might want to concentrate more on pushing for implementation of the law,” Madhuku said.
But as the 2018 elections draw closer, many in the opposition have little hope that the polls would be any different from previous ones as the conditions remain virtually the same.
