Sitrep Chipinge

The Elections Watch
29 March 2008
Time: 0106 hours

ZEC bungles
Chipinge

The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, reeling under a barrage of attacks for alleged incompetence in its handling of the harmonised elections from opposition political parties and civic society groups, is reported to be deliberately omitting names of polling agents for the opposition MDC (Tsvangirai) from the list of polling agents in Chipinge.

Samson Sithole, the MDC Tsvangirai candidate for Chipinge Central, which has 8 urban wards and 6 rural wards, alleges that in the 3 of the polling stations that he has attempted to deploy his polling agents, names of his polling agents are missing from the ZEC list.

They are 14 wards in the constituency, and has 37 polling stations.

Sithole holds that he gave ZEC a typed list (2 pages) of polling agents. However, in all the polling stations that he has sought to deploy his polling agents, the Presiding Officers are saying that the list Sithole submitted is different from the ZEC list, in some instances, the Presiding Officers are professing complete ignorance of the candidate's list. Sithole's efforts to get reprieve from ZEC have yielded no results, with officials from ZEC saying they have no information.

Sithole has however sought the indulgence of Gakava M, the Constituency Registrar, who is trying to correct the situation. He however, has to start the process of submitting the names all over again. "I think it is a deliberate and systematic plan to frustrate access to polling stations by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, whose capacity to handle the harmonised election is in grave doubt", said Sithole

Security agents in intimidation antics!

State security agents in Harare have embarked on an intimidation exercise in Harare's high density suburbs.

Swathes of soldiers, policemen and youth militia from the Border Gezi Youth Training camps, clad in police uniforms, are on the prawl in Mabvuku and Chitungwiza.

The intimidation antics follow hot on the heels of threats by security chefs to subvert the peoples vote in the event of the incumbent, Robert Mugabe, losing the elections.

The Commissioner of Prisons, Retired Major General Paradzayi Zimondi, threatened to go back to the bush and take up arms if Mugabe loses, the Police Commissioner, Augustine Chihuri followed with veiled threats against opposition candidates, holding that he will not salute sellouts. The Commander of the Zimbabwe Defense Forces, General Constantine Chiwenga made similar threats.

It is against this background that soldiers and policemen are on a roadshow in Mabvuku - trudging through the streets of Mabvuku in military tankers, in a massive show of military might.

And scores of youths from the infamous Border Gezi Training Centres are roaming the streets in the city and the high density suburbs in large and intimidating groups.

In Chitungwiza, a similar roadshow was exhibited before Morgan Tsvangirai addressed a star rally at Chibuku Stadium.