New election report shows "highly organised" rigging by ZPF

By Tererai Karimakwenda
15 August 2005

You can't rig an election if you don't plan it well and critics have always said that rigging by ZANU-PF is always planned and well thought out. And a new report by researchers at the Institute for Democratic Alternatives in South Africa - IDASA - concludes that the last election was 'won' by the ruling party after a calculated pre-election period free of violence, but full of "highly organised" irregularities.Tony Reeler and Kuda Chitsike, researchers at IDASA, said the conclusion of observer groups that the 2005 polls were "not violent elections" is erroneous. Reeler said ZANU-PF reduced the violence and focused their attention on areas where the MDC had won in 2000. The idea was to take seats away from the opposition.The research was based on data provided mostly by the National Constitutional Assembly, which had researchers all over the country before the elections. Reeler said they first determined whether this data was reliable, then used it to analyse the pre-election period and its effect on the actual polls.Evidence also pointed to the political use of food, constituencies that were manipulated and control of the opposition in terms of how often they were allowed to meet and in what ways they were allowed to campaign. Having posters torn down and supporters afraid to wear t-shirts also created an atmosphere in favour of ZANU-PF.According to Reeler, Zanu-PF purposely avoided overt violence. But people remember the effects of previous election campaigns where there was violence. And the strategy worked, because as the researchers said, "the frequently battered wife learns very quickly to adopt the right posture when her drunk husband comes home and starts shouting and waving his arms around."