Preventing Electoral Fraud report SAIRR May 11 ... - AfricanLiberty.org

The printed voters' roll supplied to the MDC by the ZEC via the Registrar-General for the
2008 harmonised elections was finally also converted into digital format. The analysis
thus made possible revealed massive discrepancies, which were identified in a report
published by the Research and Advocacy Unit (RAU), an NGO. 11
The Zimbabwe Electoral Support Network has also published a report based on a printed
copy of the roll, which it purchased in 2010. 12 To date, there has been no official
response to this report.
On 17 th November 2009 the issue of the voters' roll was debated in Parliament.
Opposition parties used data from the RAU Report to substantiate claims of gross
irregularities. Interestingly, Zanu-PF's representatives made little or no effort to dispute
these claims. Instead, there was general agreement on both sides that a new biometric
voters' roll was imperative for a democratic Zimbabwe. 13 Unfortunately, however, the
Zimbabwean Parliament did not use the broad majority in support of a new biometric roll
to incorporate such a requirement into legislation. Instead, it simply expressed its wish for
such a voters’ roll.
This Report is thus but the latest in a very long line of efforts to analyse the voters’ roll
and its imperfections. All these earlier endeavours to obtain and analyse the voters’ rolls
used in successive elections have yielded essentially the same outcome. Each evaluation
has shown that the voters' roll was in a chaotic shambles, that there were enormous
numbers of phantom voters, that free and fair elections were impossible in such
circumstances – and that the Registrar-General was largely to blame.
It is not unduly cynical to suggest that the reason there has been no official response to
any of these reports is that it has suited the ruling Zanu-PF regime only too well to
maintain the voters’ roll in this condition, as this has facilitated official manipulation of
election results. There have been many universal suffrage polls in Zimbabwe since
independence in 1980, but it seems that the country has yet to experience a truly free and
fair election.
However, one of the peculiarities of Zimbabwe is that an authoritarian Zanu-PF regime
has long co-existed with the general framework of a liberal democracy. Hence, the regime
continually attempts to legitimate its rule via elections. In most countries with that type of
regime, only a cursory regard, if that, is normally given to elections. But in Zimbabwe,
this peculiar mix of political traditions – a reflection of Zimbabwe's unique political
history – gives the regime the need to maintain a democratic façade.
However, the regime also needs to guarantee election results and so it resorts to all
possible manner of manipulation, violence, and intimidation. Since it nevertheless wants
11
12
13
RAU Report, 2013 Vision: Seeing Double and the Dead
ZESN, A Report on a Voters' Roll Audit Conducted in Zimbabwe, October 2010.
The record of this debate may be found in Hansard at:
http://www.parlzim.gov.zw/inside.aspx?mpgid=26&spid=82
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