Tsvangirai threatens election boycott over rigging attempts

By Lance Guma
20 March 2008

MDC President Morgan Tsvangirai has threatened to boycott the March 29 poll if the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission insists on counting presidential ballot papers at a national command centre in Harare, instead of at individual polling stations. Under concessions brokered by SADC, and agreed to by both Zanu PF and MDC, the counting of all ballot papers has to be done at the polling stations, with the results being pasted outside the stations. But Robert Mugabe this week began a series of last minute changes to the electoral laws, that effectively override the wishes of parliament through presidential proclamations. The opposition say the new changes will skew the vote in Zanu PF’s favour.

Speaking at press conference Thursday Tsvangirai charged that the electoral commission has printed 9 million ballot papers, even though the number of registered voters is officially put at 5,9 million. The MDC leader believes the extra 3 million ballot papers will be used to rig the poll in favour of Mugabe and his party. He also disclosed that their investigations revealed a total of 90 000 ghost voters in 28 rural constituencies. With a total of 210 constituencies, Tsvangirai said the total number of ghost voters could be more. The MDC is now expected to file a High Court challenge compelling the ZEC to clarify this and many other issues.

ZEC head George Chiweshe has meanwhile defended the commission, saying that the Senate, Council and House of Assembly votes will be counted at the polling stations,while the presidential vote will be tallied and announced at a command centre in Harare. On Monday Mugabe also issued a presidential proclamation allowing policemen into polling booths to ‘assist’ illiterate voters. Tsvangirai says the presence of policemen is a deliberate strategy to intimidate rural voters. Both Zanu PF and the MDC agreed at the SADC brokered talks that policemen should be barred from within 100 metres of a polling booth, since their presence was considered intimidatory.

Another controversial issue the MDC has sought court intervention on is for the ZEC to disclose the number of postal voters and where they will cast their votes. Meanwhile Noel Kututwa the board chairperson of the independent Zimbabwe Election Support Network says they have concerns over the number of people said be to on the voters roll. Kututwa said they doubted the 5,9 million figure claimed by the ZEC, but that it will remain hard to verify the figures as long as the voters roll was not made accessible to the opposition and other groups.