The Sunday News
Robin Muchetu, Senior Reporter
ZIMBABWE has been commended for maintaining a peaceful pre-election atmosphere and giving heed to President Mnangagwa’s call to accept politically divergent views without being antagonistic as a sign for a mature democracy.
In a pre-election observation report for the forthcoming 2023 general elections, the Centre for Electoral Democracy (CEDT) Director for Research and Communication Dr Lawrence Mandara said it was gratifying to note that there was observance of peace in the country ahead of the 23 August harmonised elections.
He called on other political leaders to follow what President Mnangagwa had done in urging peace and shun violence.
“As Zimbabwe gears for the 2023 Harmonised Elections, CEDT is satisfied by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission’s (ZEC) commitment to democratic, free, and fair elections. This also speaks to walking the talk with reference to President ED Mnangagwa’s call for peaceful and credible elections.
“In the same breath, the CEDT also notes that other political parties in this election are yet to make the peace pronouncement and are also being urged to emulate the clarion call by President Mnangagwa to preserve peace throughout the election season,” he said.
CEDT also noted that ZEC was adhering to the law and specified time frames ahead of the elections commending them for their engagement with the local observer missions.
“ZEC has noted that the 2023 harmonised elections are going to be conducted under new delimitation boundaries where the national voters roll has recorded 6 619 690 registered voters.
“A total of 11 501 polling stations have been designated for the elections and there will be 5127 candidates participating in the elections with nine percent of these candidates for the national assembly and 15 percent for the local authorities’ elections being women,” added the report by CEDT.
Dr Mandara said the public was also geared up for the elections adding that ZEC had done a good job in educating the country’s citizens to be knowledgeable about the process.
“Turning to the political environment, we note that the general mood of the public towards the election preparations is positive and many with whom we have interacted are knowledgeable about the processes,” added Dr Mandara.
According to the research, isolated cases of violence have been a cause for concern but are manageable.
“The respect for fundamental rights as enshrined in the Constitution of Zimbabwe, in particular on political rights, universal suffrage, and freedom of speech and debate is being exercised without restriction. However, we are concerned about reports of isolated incidents of threats to personal security that have mostly emanated from intra-party strife.
Of note, there have been incidents in some urban constituencies such as St Mary’s and Southerton in Harare Province where rival intra-party supporters violently confronted each other over double candidatures on nomination,” read the report.
ZEC has established specific committees to deal with different aspects of the elections such as media monitoring and a logistics committee to name a few. It has further established a functional dispute resolution mechanism.
Dr Mandara stressed that an election was a contest for political power and must never be equated to warfare.
He said candidates at the three levels of contestation, must seek to win the hearts and minds of the people through other methods that include everything else except violence adding that the promulgation of an election date was not a declaration of war.
“Leaders of political parties are encouraged to buttress and compliment President Mnangagwa’s principled position that the campaign must be peaceful. We strongly exhort every player in the political field to openly commit to not only a peaceful campaign but also embrace the verdict of the people in the post-election period,” he added.
He further said it was an aberration to have a peaceful campaign and fail to maintain the same peace after the election result had been announced.
“We roundly and absolutely condemn any attempt, direct and indirect, to utter incendiary rhetoric aimed at inciting post-election violence by some political parties when the result is not in their favour. Hopefully, the security forces will maintain their usual reputation in confronting the would-be peace spoilers. We are also happy with the healthy level of interaction between and among the Government, ZEC, political parties, candidates and the electorate,” added Dr Mandara.
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