The New York Times
18th March 2005
By Michael Wines and Sharon Lafraniere; Michael Wines reported from Filabusi for this article and Sharon Lafraniere from Johannesburg. An employee of the New York Times in Zimbabwe contributed reporting.

If this is an outpost of tyranny, it was not immediately obvious in this one-road backwater buried in Zimbabwe’s hilly southwest flank.

In a clearing amid donkey carts, rafters-high scrub and at least 3,000 peasants, Zimbabwe’s sole political opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangarai, delivered a throw-the-bums-out harangue aimed at crucial parliamentary elections later this month.

After 25 years of rule by President Robert G. Mugabe’s party, the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front, ”the money you are using presently is as good as old newspapers,” he cried. ”The grain silos are full of cobwebs. There is no harvest this year.”

It was a civics-book image of what Mr. Mugabe, 81, promises for the elections on March 31, possibly his last as president: an honest campaign to rebut accusations that he has devolved into a dictator.

When Mr. Tsvangarai last campaigned three years ago, government-run youth gangs routed supporters with clubs and party members lost homes and even lives to midnight arsonists. On this day, the police briefly detained a few slogan-singing supporters, but otherwise stood idly by.

But there is a vast difference between an obviously peaceful election and a fair one. And with two weeks left to a potentially defining moment for Mr. Mugabe, there is mounting evidence that the raucous campaigning masks an expansive effort by his party to rig the outcome.

Both independent analysts and members of Mr. Tsvangarai’s party, the Movement for Democratic Change, or M.D.C., cite growing barriers to a fair ballot. They say that polling places are scarce in opposition strongholds; that two in five enrolled voters are suspect; that Zimbabwe’s vast, mostly anti-Mugabe diaspora is barred from voting; that the 8,500 election observers are limited to those, like Russians and close African allies, who are likely to rubber-stamp a government victory. Most Westerners are excluded from witnessing the vote.

Foreign journalists are effectively banned from Zimbabwe under threat of arrest (though many enter the country as tourists). Government-run media are heavily biased; broadcast interviews with opposition figures mysteriously drown in static. There is a dearth of independent judges to rule on election complaints. Election oversight is split among a bevy of commissions largely staffed with Mr. Mugabe’s cronies.

Most important, perhaps, the government controls the biggest incentive to undecided voters: the distribution of almost all emergency food in a nation where, agricultural experts say, 4 people in 10 are unsure where to find their next meal.

Given such advantages, ”they probably believe they have won the election and that creating freer conditions on the immediate eve of the election will not hurt,” said Reginald Matchaba-Hove, chairman of the Zimbabwe Election Support Network, a coalition of pro-democracy groups. ”The assumption on Mugabe’s side is that he will get a two-thirds majority in the parliament anyway.”

During a daylong tour of Zimbabwe back-country between Bulawayo and Harare, the capital, candidates for both ZANU-P.F. and the opposition were seen beseeching crowds at groceries and liquor stores. In the mountainous chrome-mining region near Zvishavane, rival candidates were also seen handing out bags, apparently stuffed with corn, from automobiles plastered with their posters.

The police were evident, but none interfered with campaigning.

”Our campaigns are going freely,” said Albert Ndlovu, the M.D.C.’s provincial organizer for Mashonaland West, a rural province of 1.2 million in north-central Zimbabwe. ”There are pockets of violence here and there. But generally, we would say it is a bit quiet.”

Many here see Mr. Mugabe’s loosening of the reins as a calculated gamble by someone supremely confident of victory. Of the 150 seats in Parliament, ZANU-P.F. holds 98, including 30 whose occupants are government-appointed and are not being contested. The M.D.C. has a bare 51 seats, down six from the last election. To gain control, the party would have to win an additional 25 seats — an impossibility, most here say.

The voter rolls are crucial — and contentious. A computerized study in January of 100,000 registered voters by the FreeZim Support Group, a pro-democracy organization, concluded that as many as 2 million of Zimbabwe’s 5.6 million registered voters are suspect. The group estimates that 800,000 voters are dead, 300,000 are listed more than once and more than 900,000 do not live at their recorded addresses.

Opposition efforts to challenge the lists have proved futile. David Coltart, an M.D.C. legislator from Bulawayo, dispatched supporters house-to-house last month to verify his region’s rolls. The police arrested them within hours, saying he needed permission for political gatherings. Armed with a court order, he re-deployed the team — and they were arrested again.

”The M.D.C. is just losing direction,” said Margaret, a jobless 28-year-old single mother of two in Bulawayo who once worked for the ZANU-P.F. ”ZANU-P.F. will regain three-quarters of the seats they lost” in the 2000 elections, she said.

One reason, she said, is Zimbabweans’ reverence for Mr. Mugabe, their liberator from white rule, widespread chaos notwithstanding. ”If your father rapes someone, you do not shun him,” she said. ”He’s still your father.” She refused to give her last name.

Yet among many Zimbabweans interviewed, the M.D.C. is seen as surging in popularity. Thousands have swarmed to rallies, even in rural areas long seen as government strongholds, and the government’s decision to allow open campaigning has emboldened ordinary people.
Burdened with sclerotic leaders and restless younger underlings, ZANU-P.F. also is not the well-oiled political machine it once was.

But if this election hinges on anything, many say, it may be food — or the lack of it. One year ago, Mr. Mugabe ordered the World Food Program to stop distributing most food aid, stating that Zimbabwe was self-sufficient.

In fact, outside experts agree, the opposite was true.

But by forcing the World Food Program to reduce food distribution, the government ensured that the hungry would look to the government for aid, often tied to support of government candidates.
The National Constitutional Assembly, a pro-democracy group, reported in February that food was used as a political tool in nearly three out of four districts it surveyed.

But the government has also courted a powerful backlash by failing to fill the vacuum it created by rejecting international food aid. As he stood at in the crowd at the Filabusi rally, Ngwenya, a 52-year-old farmer with seven children who would volunteer only his first name, agreed that this election is first and foremost about food. ”A people’s government must first see if people are eating,” he said.

IWPR
By Chipo Sithole

CONSTRUCTION has been completed of Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe’s controversial £5 million mansion in Harare’s leafy northern suburbs.

The 25-bedroom private house, built by a Serbian construction company Energoproject to a Chinese architectural design, has two lakes in its 44 acre landscaped grounds and is protected by a multi-million pounds radar system.
Approach roads to the mansion, topped by a Chinese-style roof clad in midnight blue tiles from Shanghai, are off limits to the general public.

It is understood that some 50 police riot response officers guard the Mugabe palace on a 24- hour basis in cooperation with the much-feared Central Intelligence Organisation, CIO.

Sources in the President’s office told reporters that chemical and biological sensors are strategically positioned on all approaches to the mansion, around 30 kilometres north of the centre of Harare.

“The sensors are supplemented with radiological detection equipment, including radiation pagers on the belts of some of the law enforcement officers,” the presidential source said. “CAAZ (the Civil Aviation Authority of Zimbabwe) is policing the area above the house [by helicopter and spotter plane] to ensure that it is a no-fly zone. In addition, the CIO is providing dogs that can sniff out explosives.”

The project, which took three years to complete, is the most visible symbol of how Mugabe and his acolytes have prospered while more than five million of his 11.5 million people are near starvation and will need food aid this year, according to the World Food Programme.

Some 80 per cent of Mugabe’s fellow countrymen are unemployed and those with factory jobs earn an average wage equivalent to about 11 dollars a month.
The size of the house dwarfs by three times the size of State House, the home of the head of state and earlier British governors. Its interior decoration by South African, Arab and Chinese designers is being supervised by 81-year-old Mugabe’s 40-year-old wife, Grace. Its size and expense raises the question of how Mugabe paid for it, since his annual salary until recently was only the equivalent of 44,000 dollars a year.
Opposition MPs have unsuccessfully asked in parliament where Mugabe got the foreign currency to import materials from Europe, the Middle East and China.

Zimbabwe has suffered a foreign exchange crisis as a result of the country’s economic collapse, which has seen gross domestic product drop for each of the past seven successive years.

The president was clearly agitated when, in an interview with Sky News reporter Stuart Ramsey broadcast in Britain last year, he denied that the mansion had been built with Zimbabwean taxpayer’s money.

He said the Serbian company had donated material and labour at cost, supplemented by gifts of fine timber from Malaysian Prime Minister Makathir Mohammad and roof tiles from China. “You say it is lavish because it is attractive,” Mugabe told Ramsey. “It has Chinese roofing material which makes it very beautiful, but it was donated to us – the Chinese are our good friends, you see.”

The source declined to confirm whether Mugabe and his wife have moved into the house, but added that residents in the area of the palace are being subjected to regular security checks.

No extravagance has been spared on the three-storey palace. Marble has been imported from Italy. The finest European crystal, sunken baths with Jacuzzi fittings and oriental rugs are all part of the décor. The soaring ceilings were decorated by Arab craftsmen.

There is a sprawling entertainment area, a master bedroom suite, apartments for each of the three Mugabe children, servants’ quarters, a helicopter pad, extensive garage systems and swimming pools. Mugabe professes to be a Marxist, and on one website which has followed the construction of his new home, a contributor comments, “Marxism is very profitable indeed for those who run it.”

The justice spokesman for the opposition MDC, David Coltart, said, “Until a few years ago it had been assumed that Mugabe himself had not been corrupt. The size of this house suggests otherwise. He must explain to the nation where he got the money from.”

“The palace is an affront to the suffering people of Zimbabwe,” said John Makumbe, a political science lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe and a member of the anti-corruption group, Transparency International. “It shows that Mugabe will need a further push to convince him that he really must negotiate an end to his reign.”

Zimbabwe Standard

ZIMBABWE has several bodies dealing with elections and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) believes this is a ploy to confuse voters.

David Coltart, the MDC secretary for legal affairs, says the government has successfully hoodwinked the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) into thinking the recently enacted Zimbabwe Electoral Commission Act had levelled the electoral playing field. He said the SADC Guidelines governing democratic elections were clear on the need for non-partisan electoral bodies.

Part of the SADC guidelines stipulates that member states shall: “Establish impartial, all-inclusive, competent and accountable national electoral bodies staffed by qualified personnel, as well as competent legal entities, including effective constitutional courts to arbitrate in the event of disputes arising from the conduct of elections.”

Coltart listed the electoral bodies as the Electoral Supervisory Commission (ESC), the Delimitation Commission, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), the Observers’ Accreditation Commission and the Registrar General’s Office, which registers voters.

“The Electoral Supervisory Commission is appointed by Robert Mugabe and therefore cannot be impartial. The Delimitation Commission is appointed by Mugabe and therefore cannot be impartial, the Observers’ Accreditation Commission is headed by the chairperson of the ESC, who is an appointee of the President. The Registrar General is accountable to Cabinet. The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission goes some way towards being inclusive in its nature but it does not include civic society, churches and the public. In any case, its chairperson is appointed by Mugabe.”Coltart said

The ESC is a product of constitutional provisions and was formerly headed by Sobusa Gula-Ndebele, now the Attorney General.

A commissioner in the ESC, Joyce Kazembe, told a workshop organised by the Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) in Bulawayo last week that although soldiers would not supervise elections in March, the ESC would continue to employ them at their secretariat.

“I cannot deny that we still have members of the military that we employ as our staff. The military have a lot of excess staff.”

On concerns about the large number of players in the electoral process, Kazembe said: “Change, no matter how fast we may want it, does not come in one day. We are not supposed to be in the transitional stage of the electoral process but we are.”

Otto Saki, a member of the Lawyers for Human Rights, said a sign of confusion prevailing in the electoral process was that although ZEC was supposed to call for the registration of voters, by the time the commission was put in place, the process had already started.

Seattle Post

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe has increasingly turned to hard-line military commanders to cow his factious country and now is relying on them to ensure a ruling party triumph in March 31 parliamentary elections.

He appointed a former colonel to run the new Election Commission last month and passed laws that placed the army in charge of polling stations and allows military officers to serve as election officials.

Analysts said it follows a trend in recent years of militarizing Zimbabwean society. Mugabe clings to power, they said, by placing men who unflinchingly follow orders in charge of strategic industries and ministries, the secret police, justice system, youth militias and food and fuel distribution.

“The strategy is to get people in key positions that share the hard-line attitudes of the government,” Lovemore Madhuku, the chairman of the National Constitutional Assembly, an opposition coalition of churches and unions, said in a telephone interview.

“You appoint the military because they follow orders. They will do what is required,” Madhuku said.

Senior military officers are closely aligned politically to Mugabe, a strongman who has led this country since independence in 1980s, and many have lucrative business ties to ruling party stalwarts.

“Mugabe has never been comfortable with people not in the military. As his popularity has progressively declined, he has run back to the military for his own protection,” said University of Zimbabwe political scientist John Makumbe. This proclivity became more pronounced this winter as the ruling party fractured in December from political infighting.

“He is a frightened man,” said Makumbe, speaking by telephone from the United States, where he is a guest lecturer at Michigan State University. “The infighting shook him greatly. His party is weaker than ever before, more vulnerable. It has enemies without and now seemingly enemies within.”

To shore up military support, troops recently received raises of up to 1,400 percent, said Makumbe.

He said Mugabe has also given large commercial farms confiscated by the government from white farmers to top officers. The army and police services also purged and punished thousands in junior ranks suspected of supporting Mugabe’s opponents.

The upcoming elections “will take place under the most repressive laws in our history. Not a single electoral body is impartial,” said David Coltart, a spokesman for the Movement for Democratic Change, the main opposition party.

In a troubling sign for the opposition, members of the Green Bombers, the government youth militia, are being incorporated into security forces and will run polling stations, said Makumbe. The State Department has accused the group of beating and torturing opposition supporters into submission under direction of state officials.

Also, prosecutors around the country, directed by former colonel and new Attorney General Sobuza Gula-Ndebele, are seeking to reinstate charges dropped against opposition activists for lack of evidence.

Nearly all the charges stem from alleged violations of the draconian Public Order and Security Act, a law prohibiting political meetings or discussions without prior police approval that is rarely granted to the opposition.

Meanwhile, George Chiweshe, a former colonel and veteran of the independence war, was picked to run the new Electoral Commission.

Opposition party spokesman Paul Themba Nyathi said the party has serious reservations about Chiweshe’s impartiality and independence.
That’s not surprising.

During the last presidential election in 2002, Mugabe was declared the narrow winner in voting independent observers called deeply flawed by intimidation, violence and massive vote rigging.

Just before that vote, another military man, Gen. Vitalis Zvinavashe, said in a statement widely condemned both in Africa and abroad that the country’s military and secret police would not accept an opposition victory. Some junior officers later acknowledged to human rights investigators that they had been forced to stuff ballot boxes for the ruling party and the president.

The Daily Telegraph
24th January 2005
By Peta Thornycroft in Harare

Mr Mugabe has given the security forces a legal role in elections

President Robert Mugabe was accused yesterday of “militarising” Zimbabwe’s forthcoming election after a new law placed the army in charge of polling stations and installed the regime’s allies in every key position.

Devoid of any independent supervision, the March parliamentary polls are expected to see a sweeping victory for the ruling Zanu-PF party.

The Electoral Act, signed into law by Mr Mugabe last week, gives the security forces a legal role in national elections for the first time in Zimbabwe’s history.

Section 17 allows the heads of the “service commissions” to second personnel to serve as “constituency election officers, deputy constituency elections officers, assistant constituency elections officers and polling officers”. The commissions are defined as the army, air force, police and prison service.

David Coltart, the justice spokesman for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, called it the “militarisation of the election process itself”. He added: “These elections will take place under the most repressive laws in our history. Not a single electoral body is impartial.

“In the presidential election, Mugabe used the army covertly, now he can do it legally.”

Mr Mugabe has gained the loyalty of the security forces. Before the presidential election of 2002, all senior military commanders declared they would serve under no president except him.

Moreover, members of the regime’s youth militia, held responsible for a violent campaign against the MDC, are being incorporated into the security forces and will run polling stations.

Mr Mugabe has ensured that his allies will oversee the contest. A High Court judge, Mr Justice George Chiweshe, has been made chairman of the Election Commission.

He also runs the body charged with drawing up new constituency boundaries, a role in which he has already eliminated three opposition seats and created three others in Zanu-PF strongholds.

Paul Themba Nyathi, the MDC spokesman, said the opposition had “serious reservations” about Mr Justice Chiweshe’s impartiality and independence.

Shortly after being appointed to the bench, the judge denied bail to an MP from the MDC who was critically ill after spending six weeks in custody.

The MDC is deeply divided over whether to boycott the polls, in which it is likely to lose half of its 51 seats if it runs any candidates.

The Financial Gazette

THE Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Bill, which proposes punishment of up to 20 years imprisonment for anyone who publishes or communicates statements perceived to be prejudicial to the state, is unconstitutional and meant to close any “loopholes” in the existing repressive media laws, analysts said.

The proposed law, which has miffed journalists and other media activists in and outside Zimbabwe, was this week roundly condemned by media experts and analysts who dismissed it as a another strong-arm tactic by the government to further curtail press freedom.

Analysts who spoke to The Financial Gazette said the Bill would deal with those government critics in the media that escape the draconian Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) and the Public Order and Security Act (POSA).

Eldred Masunungure, a political science lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe, said the government, which accuses the independent media of working in cahoots with “regime change proponents, probably noticed some loopholes” in AIPPA and POSA, hence the push towards another draconian law.

“It (government) now wants to close every avenue of free expression. It is further tightening the screws on journalists, especially those working in the independent press. It’s part of a grand scheme or total strategy to strangulate the media or those still expressing views contrary to those of the government or the ruling ZANU PF,” said Masunungure.

“There is AIPPA and POSA. Now there is going to be this law. It’s a multiple-pronged approach designed to net as many dissenters as possible. If AIPPA and POSA miss you, this one will get you,” he added.

Human rights lawyer Brian Kagoro, who is also chairman of Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, a loose grouping of 350 local civic organisations, said the unconstitutionality of the proposed legislation was blatant in that it prohibited Zimbabweans from criticising the state.

“It’s probably worse than AIPPA,” said Kagoro. “The state itself is not infallible so as such it is bound to make mistakes. The safeguard of every citizen is to be a critic of the state,” he said.

The Bill, which seeks to bring under one document all criminal laws in Zimbabwe, has already sailed through the second reading stage in Parliament and is now at the committee stage.

Clause 31 of the Bill criminalises publishing or communicating “to any person a statement, which is wholly or materially false with the intention or realising that there is a real risk of inciting or promoting public disorder or violence or endangering public safety.”

David Coltart, a Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) legislator and the opposition party’s legal affairs spokesman, added his voice to the growing disenchantment about the latest law.

“The section that deals with crimes against the state smacks of fascism and is far worse than those passed by the Smith regime. The 20-year sentence is shocking and condemns the prisoner to death in Zimbabwean jails,” said Coltart.

“The government is passing laws that are unconstitutional. They are desperate to shut down dissenting voices,” he added.

Kagoro also added: “If the state acts unjustly, the citizens have a right to criticise or rebel. To enact a law that says citizens can’t communicate to each other statements seen as prejudicial to the state is grossly unconstitutional and unfair,” Kagoro added.

Clause 31 of the Bill also criminalises the publishing or communicating to any other person a statement adversely affecting the defence and economic interests of Zimbabwe or undermining public confidence in law enforcement agents or interfering with, disrupting or interrupting any essential services.

Citizens found guilty risk 20 years in jail or a $5 million fine or both.

The Zimbabwe Union of Journalists, the largest body representing media workers in the country, has also condemned the proposed new law.

Mail and Guardian (SA)

The MDC’s decision to suspend its participation in further elections pending Zimbabwe’s compliance with the new SADC guidelines and principles for democratic elections seems to have taken many by surprise.

It was assumed that the MDC would continue to place blind faith in Zanu (PF) eventually opening up the democratic space and restoring citizens’ hard earned democratic rights to participate freely in the democratic process. The MDC has, after all, participated in numerous deeply flawed elections since 2000.

Since the disputed March 2002 Presidential elections we have tried in vain to enter into dialogue with Zanu (PF) to build a national political consensus on the way forward; a consensus that is a pre-requisite for tackling Zimbabwe’s multi-faceted crisis.

The obstinacy of Zanu (PF) towards introducing the reforms that are needed to restore genuine, democratic elections prompted the MDC, in January of this year, to publish our own set of minimum standards for elections in our document entitled ‘Restore’. Our aim was to give Zanu (PF) sufficient time to implement these standards ahead of the March 2005 parliamentary elections.

When Mr. Mugabe agreed with other SADC leaders in Mauritius on a comprehensive set of standards for elections that captured the essential elements of our ‘Restore document’, it appeared that Zanu (PF) would finally embark upon a comprehensive programme of democratic reform in line with SADC standards.

Sadly, the publication by the Government of Zimbabwe, within days of the adoption of the Mauritius principles, of a new draconian Bill to repress and control the activities of human rights organizations made it immediately apparent that the electoral environment in Zimbabwe is actually getting worse, not better, since the Mauritius agreement.

In light of these regretful developments the MDC took the decision to suspend participation in elections pending Zimbabwe’s total compliance with the Mauritius principles. With parliamentary elections less than seven months away, it was essential that an emphatic and clear message be sent that major democratic reforms are still needed to restore transparency and fairness to the entire electoral process. These reforms (which include repealing statutes that curtail basic rights, disbanding the youth militias and the compilation of, and access to, a new and accurate voters’ roll) take time to implement; they cannot simply be introduced a month or two before polling day.

The people of Zimbabwe desire genuine electoral reform; they wish to enjoy the same electoral standards that are already in place in other SADC countries.

The nationwide celebrations that took place throughout Zimbabwe over the course of last weekend, marking the MDC’s 5th anniversary, clearly demonstrate the growing momentum for genuine electoral reform.

The overwhelmingly positive response from the people, the continued harassment of MDC members (e.g the detention of MDC MP and Chairperson of our Youth Assembly Nelson Chamisa last week for holding a small meeting in his home) and the publication last Friday of a new Bill to establish an ‘independent’ Electoral Commission further vindicates our decision to suspend participation in elections. The appointments procedure for the new commission means that it will be independent in name only. Mr. Mugabe will appoint its Chairperson and the balance of its members will be selected by him from a shortlist provided by a Parliamentary Committee dominated by Zanu (PF).

Whilst we are limited in our internal ability to achieve change, we still continue to try by mobilizing peaceful pressure. However, we know we must work together with our allies in SADC to bring genuine democracy and prosperity to the region.

We believe that the MDC, the SADC leadership and the people of the SADC region all aspire to the same thing. We want food for our children. We want jobs and investment to come into the region to uplift the lives of poverty stricken people still waiting for the benefits of economic liberation. We want genuine political reforms that protect the freedoms that many fought and died for. We want to work together with others in the region to stabilize our country’s crisis, and to do so rapidly.

Another flawed election in Zimbabwe, however, will simply serve to entrench and exacerbate Zimbabwe’s socio-economic and political crisis. This is in nobody’s interest. A further deterioration of the Zimbabwe crisis will not only increase the suffering of ordinary Zimbabweans it will also undermine the region’s developmental objectives. The region needs a stable Zimbabwe; a Zimbabwe equipped to make a meaningful contribution to meeting the goals of the African renaissance. The time for a collective effort to establish a new beginning and build a new, democratic Zimbabwe, is now long overdue.

David Coltart MP
Shadow Justice Minister