Zanu-PF manipulating figures through vote recount

By Tichaona Sibanda
21 April 2008

The MDC claimed on Monday that the vote recount exercise was being used by the regime to ‘doctor’ figures to allow Robert Mugabe to qualify for a run-off with Morgan Tsvangirai.

Eddie Cross, the party’s policy co-ordinator and MP for Bulawayo South, said that in practical terms the Electoral Commission only needed to verify the votes through official documentation (V-11 forms) that all parties signed at the end of the electoral process. The forms were signed in triplicate and were counter-signed by polling officers and agents from all parties that participated in the elections.

‘Those documents are there and contain the true reflection of what went on in the polling stations. It’s clear from the documents that Tsvangirai beat Mugabe by a very wide margin and this exercise is meant to try and manipulate that outcome,’ Cross said.

According to Cross, the legitimacy that Robert Mugabe has been so craving has been ‘blown into pieces’ and he no longer has any reputation to speak off.

The MDC contends that the vote recount in nearly all the 23 constituencies has been seriously marred by irregularities, due to the high number of ballot boxes that have been tampered with.

The process had also been dogged by delays, administrative problems and a clear political intent of blaming the MDC for all the problems associated with the recount.

There has been repeated miscommunication of venue addresses for the recount, which resulted in party agents and electoral observers going to the incorrect venue. This undermined the observation process and contributed to further delays.

Books containing the names of individuals who worked at several counting stations were missing, bringing counting to a halt in a number of areas, while on a number of ballot boxes the seals holding the keys for the two padlocks on each box had been broken.

All of theses problems pointed to the fact that a number of ballot boxes had been tampered with, rendering the entire exercise of recounting the contested ballots a futile one, Cross said.