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

Executive Summary
The primary objective of Zimbabwe's coalition Government, born of the
Global Political Agreement (GPA) of September 2008, was to lay the
foundations for free and fair elections. The GPA itself only emerged after the
elections of March-June 2008 in which the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) won a parliamentary majority. This was then
followed by a presidential election campaign of such surpassing violence
that the MDC candidate, Mr Morgan Tsvangirai, withdrew rather than
expose his followers to further brutality. After some pressure from
Zimbabwe's neighbours in the Southern Africa Development Community
(SADC), the GPA was signed. This allowed President Robert Mugabe to
remain in power with Mr Tsvangirai as Prime Minister. The GPA called for a
new constitution and new elections which would resolve Zimbabwe's
decade-long crisis.
This arrangement necessarily entrusted an utterly key role and mandate to
the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC). This was problematic, for the
ZEC has major credibility problems due to its past use as a politicised and
partisan tool of the ruling Zanu-PF Government. Hence, if fresh elections are
to work, the credibility and capacity of the ZEC will be pivotal.
Over the years numerous reports have been compiled and submitted to the
electoral authorities about the grave deficiencies of the voters' roll, itself the
responsibility of the Registrar-General of Elections, Mr Tobaiwa Mudede, a
self-acknowledged Zanu-PF die-hard. On the sole occasion when any notice
was taken of these exposés – the last report by the Zimbabwe Electoral
Support Network (ZESN), a network of civil society organisations – the
ZEC merely referred the problem back to Mr Mudede. This, of course,
resulted in no remedial action.
This Report sets out the detailed problems with the latest version (as of
October 2010) of the voters' roll. It also suggests why some members of the
ZEC are unfit to sit on a body which is currently the most important
institution on which a democratic future for Zimbabwe depends.
The Report also suggests that Mr Mudede cannot be the right man for the
post of Registrar-General, for he has been largely responsible for the
defective voters' rolls used in elections since 2000 and for the extremely
flawed electoral processes witnessed in these polls. Any serious attempt to