Human Rights and Zimbabwe

In January 2002 the Mass Public Opinion Institute conducted a survey which showed that only 39,4% of its 684 rural respondants claimed to know about the forthcoming presidential election in March, only 40,0% thought the election was important, only 40,7% were then registered as voters and only 41,6% intended to vote.[1]

Especially in the light of such ignorance and apparent apathy, many feared that rigging of the presidential election would impair both the right to vote and the equality of the vote, which indeed happened in the many different ways dealt with in this chapter. MDC legislators saw as conditions conducive to potential rigging, the militarisation of the entire country, fast-tracked unconstitutional legislation and ‘people … being butchered in the countryside’,[2] plus the more obvious disenfranchisement by law, manipulation of the voters’ roll, possible stuffing and replacement of ballot boxes with ballot papers surplus to requirements. They recognised only too well that sophisticated rigging is done not on polling days, but in the preparation time well before that. That is why they wanted international observers on the ground months rather than weeks before the poll. The early arrivals were briefed on these operations and did indeed help to limit the extent of the rigging.

However, head of the South African Observer Mission Sam Motsuenyane will have a hard time living down his (in)famous description of the voting chaos and resulting disenfranchisement of urban voters as ‘an administrative oversight’. The Electoral Supervisory Commission itself had, in its report on the June 2000 elections, attributed to administrative ‘confusion’ and last-minute changes to election procedures, the fact that many people had been unable to vote. Nothing, it seemed, had changed between June 2000 and March 2002, except the ‘confusion’ had perhaps worsened under the direction of those who have ‘organised’ Zimbabwe’s elections for far too long. As the Harare Combined Residents’ Association put this point:

‘The chaotic state of the voters roll, the failure of the Registrar-General to close the rolls timeously and to make these freely available for inspection as required by the Electoral Act (Part IV s18) is a bureaucratic arrogance and incompetence that undermined this democratic process. Our experience with the January voters roll can only lead us to believe that the incompetence and erroneous data therein was a deliberate ploy to frustrate voters. This view is supported by the detailed reports of others … in civil society.’[3]

Electoral institutions

(a) The Electoral Supervisory Commission (ESC)

The five-member Electoral Supervisory Commission is established under s 61 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe. All members are appointed by the State President, the chair and two others after consultation with the Judicial Service Commission and the remaining two after consultation with the Speaker of Parliament. Members may not be MPs or local government councillors. ESC main functions include supervising the registration of voters and the conduct of elections, but it may also report on legislation. Under s 61(6), the ESC ‘shall not … be subject to the direction or control of any person or authority’ in performing its functions.

The ESC appeared to be insufficiently constituted to perform its constitutional duties. Only four of the five required ESC members were appointed, directly by Robert Mugabe, to serve until 31 July 2004. As chair, retired army colonel and ex-combatant, lawyer Sobusa Gula-Ndebele replaced Anglican Bishop Peter Hatendi, who had resigned early in 2000 in protest over funding and other inadequacies which meant the ESC could not perform its functions as required in law. The other members of the ESC were Joyce Kazembe, Richard Moyo-Majwabu and Chief Bepura.

ESC chair Gula-Ndebele appointed as Director of Elections brigadier Douglas Nyikayaramba.[4] Later, 72 ZNA officers (from NCOs to four major-generals) were reportedly seconded to the ESC, apparently with unspecified roles and functions.[5] Nyikaramba reportedly oversaw the selection and training of 1 080 election supervisors and some 22 000 election monitors drawn from the public service – particularly from the ministries of defence, home affairs and education.[6]

(i) Monitoring

Zimbabwe’s High Commissioner to London, Simbarashe Mumbengegwi, reportedly told a debate at the Royal Commonwealth Institute, that ESC ‘monitors were appointed by the same process as court judges’.[7]

The Electoral Supervisory Commission (Electoral Supervisory Commission) is recruiting suitably qualified persons from the Public Service in Harare, Chitungwiza, the provinces and districts. They will be engaged as monitors for the Presidential, mayoral and ward elections to be held on 9th-10th March, 2002.

Interested persons should obtain clearance letters from their heads of ministries and the police.

Those working in Harare and Chitungwiza should immediately report to: The Electoral Supervisory Commission, Office no 514, 5th Floor, Hardwicke House, 72-74 Samora Machel Avenue, Harare.

These requirements are clearly quite remote, together with the process of appointing them, from those applied to judges (which are set out in the Constitution of Zimbabwe). What is of interest, though, is the additional requirement to ‘have [unspecific] working experience’ in addition to being serving public servants. Such requirements did nothing to allay widespread fears that those recruited would be ‘war veterans’. In any case, to have public servants monitoring the work of their colleagues is hardly ‘independent’ monitoring. MDC parliamentarians had successfully objected, for precisely that reason, to a similar arrangement proposed to monitor the Registrar-General’s functions.

(ii) Election observers

There were so few observers and journalists accredited for this election that, in Jonathan Moyo’s home constituency of Tsholotsho, where the ZANU-PF candidate managed narrowly to win the count, MDC polling agents noted that they saw neither observers nor anyone from the press for the entire polling period. It was not recorded whether any other constituency had this experience.

(a) International observers

On 6 February 2002, accreditation fees for international election observers were specified as US$100 each for those from Africa, while those from further afield were charged three times this amount.[8] On 22 February, the ESC’s Observers’ Accreditation Committee was empowered to waive these fees for any individual or group.[9] By mid-February 2002, 37 had succeeded in becoming accredited. This required a written invitation from the Government of Zimbabwe and, according to one report, was handled by the CIO.[10] Eventually 566 were reportedly accredited.[11] But ‘a senior western diplomat’ was quoted as noting that the Zimbabwean government ‘has clearly acted in a way to delay the arrival of international election observers, to limit their number, and to ensure that they move around the country as little and as late as possible’.[12]

Not invited at all were major USA institutions, such as the Carter Center, the International Foundation for Election Systems, and the National Democratic Institute. The EU was invited, but threatened sanctions targetted at Robert Mugabe and his close associates if their freely-selected 150-person observer delegation was not admitted by 3 February 2002; if their observers were later prevented from operating effectively; if the international media were not given free access to cover the election; if attacks on the opposition increased or the human rights situation deteriorated seriously; and if the results of the elections were ultimately not assessed as free and fair.[13] The sanctions included travel bans on Robert Mugabe and other ZANU-PF politicians; the freezing of their foreign banks accounts and other assets; and a ban on arms and equipment that could be used for internal repression.

An ‘advance party’ from the EU was admitted. Some individual members flew in without hindrance, which had been enough then not to trigger immediate sanctions. But Zimbabwe refused to accredit EU delegation leader Pierre Schori and on 16 February 2002 reportedly withdrew the ‘tourist’ visa he had allegedly been issued with.[14] Schori had, after all, led the EU observer team for the June 2000 elections. Its report had withheld overall endorsement of that election as free and fair, and was presumably part of the reason for Zimbabwe’s refusal to accredit the person regarded as primarily responsible for that ‘failure’. ‘He is obviously trying to cheat his way into being recognised as an accredited observer’, the Minister of Home Affairs, John Nkomo, was quoted as saying of Schori, Sweden’s ambassador to the United Nations, whom Sweden later confirmed had a six-month, multiple-entry visa.[15] On 18 February 2002, the EU withdrew all its observers and imposed targetted sanctions as it had threatened to do. UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw was quoted on the front page of The Herald[16] as having described Robert Mugabe’s promise of free and fair elections as ‘entirely bogus’. Chris Patten said:

‘The EU has decided to impose sanctions not because of these unhappy details [regarding Schori], but because of what these events showed about the [Zimbabwean] government’s approach to the shared values that underpin our Cotonou partnership.’[17]

A heavy onus therefore rested on the large South African observer mission, reportedly augmented late by an extra 27 members. Only 23 arrived. They were from the South African NGO Committee (SANGOCO). They were refused accreditation except as members of the official SA observer mission, and declined that as ‘too much of a political compromise’, flying back after only two days in Zimbabwe.[18] A South African journalist demanded ‘Why haven’t we seen a full list of all the [SA] observers? What are they supposed to do?’[19]

Zimbabweans recoiled in disbelief from the apparent lack of concern shown by South African observers over 17 deaths from political violence in January alone, arising from our southern neighbour’s familiarity with routinely much-higher levels of violence. Pius Wakatama noted, of the apparently cavalier South African attitude to its own thousand deaths in its 1994 elections:

‘For your own information, Zimbabweans are not prepared for even one fellow countryman to die as a sacrifice to the political god of depraved, power-hungry politicians. The sanctity of life is their highest value.[20]

The Commonwealth delegation was led by former Nigerian president Abdulsalami Abubakar, reportedly convicted, together with others, on 11 February 2002 by Judge Bernard Friedman in the Eastern Michigan district court, of human rights abuses during 1998-9, on the pleas of Hafsat Abiola, Chief Anthony Enahoro and Dr Arthur Nwankwo.[21] The US-based Nigerian Pro-Democracy Network reportedly viewed this conviction as discrediting the Commonwealth observer team to Zimbabwe under his leadership. Pius Wakatama asked: ‘How can we be sure that he will be outraged by human rights abuses in Zimbabwe?’[22] But Abubakar noted that for lack of a timely invitation, only 33 of his delegation had arrived in Zimbabwe a fortnight before polling.[23] He complained about the distortions in ZBC coverage of the Commonwealth’s delegation’s condemnation of violence, and confirmed that his group had ‘received credible reports of violence, met with victims of violence, witnessed violence and indeed has itself been victim of election-related violence’.[24] And his delegation declined to certify the election as free or fair.

On 5 March 2002, the World Council of Churches and the All-African Conference of Churches sent an 86-member observer delegation.[25] Others who arrived in the week before polling included most of the SADC team and 20 observers from the African Union. Their leader, Chefeke Sessalegn, was reported by the state-controlled media as having said his team ‘would carry out its mission according to the mandate given by the Government of Zimbabwe’, rather than instructions from the African Union.[26]

‘The observers considered to be politically correct by the government can do little to ensure a free and fair election. Most of them, but particularly the Southern African Development Community (SADC) team, are in danger of being cast as co-conspirators with ZANU-PF in its theft of the 9-10 March presidential election. They seem more concerned with Mugabe’s political survival than with the future of the 13 million citizens of Zimbabwe.’

Such views were exacerbated by early statements from some observers. Kaire Mbuende, leader of the Namibian observers, distinguished between ‘provoked’, ‘unprovoked’ and ‘stage-managed’ violence, and asserted that the extent of violence, as ‘a complex phenomenon that should not be taken at face value’, had been ‘exaggerated’.[28] His language echoed that of Jonathan Moyo and Philip Chiyangwa.[29] His compatriot in the Commonwealth team submitted a minority ‘report’.

The SADC Parliamentary Forum announced – before it had received an invitation separate from its parent body – that its independent delegation of 30-50 MPs from the region would start arriving on Friday 15 February 2002.[30] Although delayed by a tardy invitation, five arrived three weeks before polling and the remainder a week later. Unlike its parent body, whose observers arrived much later, the SADC Parliamentary Forum reported an unfree and unfair election, particularly condemning Zimbabwe’s failure to implement its own election Norms and Standards.

(b) Local election observers

Zimbabwe’s electoral regulations[31] allow for three observers per observer group inside or within 100 metres of any polling station. Local civic organisations were invited, three weeks out from polling, to nominate some 5 000 ‘local observers’ at an accreditation fee of Z$1 000 each.[32] That would have represented one observer per polling station and a useful extra Z$5 million for the ESC. However, only 470 were reportedly accredited (averaging one-tenth of an observer per polling venue), from the ZANU-PF-supporting Affirmative Action Group and the National Development Association, the Electoral Supervisory Commission itself, the Confederation of Zimbabwean Industries and the Community Working Group on Health.[33] Ten observers per organisation seemed to be the upper limit applied.

In a re-run of June 2000, local observers were not accredited in large numbers, if at all, from organisations deemed to be anti-government, such as the Zimbabwe Election Support Network’s members (ZCTU, Amani Trust, etc). Only 15 of 600 ZCTU nominees were accredited – on the day before polling started – as part of ZESN’s total of 400.[34] Despite the fact that mayoral and Harare City Council elections were conducted simultaneously, no observers from the Harare Combined Residents’ Association were accredited. Patrick Chinamasa reportedly urged ZESN to reduce 12 500 names (averaging 2,7 per station) it had demanded be accredited. ‘There is no way we can allow such a number at the polling station because there will be congestion… If they have not reduced their numbers by now, they may not take part in the election’, he was quoted as threatening.[35] The net result, of course, was that unacceptably high numbers of polling booths never had any external observers – or opposition polling agents either.

When asked why so few local observers had been accredited three days before polling by its Accreditation Committee, ESC chair Gula-Ndebele was quoted as saying ‘We are not sure what the bottleneck is’.[36] ‘The bottleneck’ was never removed, and ZESN deployed most of its 12 500 trained observers in what it called ‘a parallel monitoring exercise’, observing from outside rather than inside the stations to which they were supposed to have been accredited officially.

(iii) Voter Education

Under s 14C, newly introduced to the Electoral Act via the GLAA, the intention was to restrict voter education to the ESC in which the monitors from the defence ministry were expected to play key roles. However, this section was not reintroduced via a statutory instrument, adequate financial resources were lacking, and so voter education became ‘open territory’ before the election, after which it reappeared in the Electoral Amendment Bill (No 4 of 2002).

‘MMPZ [the Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe] laments the fact that with barely 14 days to go before the presidential election, there has been no attempt by the government-controlled media to clarify important electoral processes that are likely to affect the electorate on voting day… the national public broadcaster and the government-owned ZimPapers publications have made no effort to explain, for example, what identity papers the electorate will be required to produce to cast their vote. No explanation has been given to the electorate in Harare and Chitungwiza about what documents they will be required to produce when they go to cast their vote in the concurrent municipal and mayoral elections in these two centres. None of the media has called upon the Registrar-General’s Office to provide this information and the Electoral Supervisory Commission has not produced any educational advertising to assist in these important electoral matters.

Without clear and unambiguous advice well ahead of the election, many voters risk the possibility of being disenfranchised on technical grounds.’[37]

The ESC was also reported to have distributed educational materials which were internally-contradictory on where to place one’s X on the ballot paper.[38]

(iv) Code of Conduct (Political Parties)

The ESC chaired all-party meetings to formulate a code of conduct ahead of the poll. They broke down, reportedly because ZANU-PF refused to endorse the cessation of violence, abduction and torture.[39] Eventually the Code of Conduct was gazetted the day before voting.[40]

3. Every political party and every candidate at a Parliamentary or Presidential election shall be bound by the Code set out in the Schedule.

1. The purpose of this Code is to promote conditions that are conducive to free and fair elections and a climate of tolerance in which electioneering activity may take place without fear or coercion, intimidation or reprisals.

2. The Code will apply to political parties and their candidates, members, supporters and agents.

3.1 in the case of a political party, instruct its candidates, persons who hold political office in the party and its representatives, members and supporters to comply with this Code and any applicable electoral laws;

3.2 in the case of a candidate instruct the representatives and supporters of the candidate to comply with this Code and any applicable electoral laws;

4.3 publicly condemn any action that may undermine the free and fair conduct of elections;

4.4 accept the result of an election or challenge the result by due process of law.

5.1 with other parties to minimise the risk of electoral-related conflict; in particular, they must endeavour not to call public meetings, marches or rallies that coincide with those called by another party or candidate contesting the election;

5.2 with the election authorities to protect and enhance their role to supervise and administer elections;

6.3 publish false or defamatory allegations about a party, its candidate(s), representatives or members;

6.4 discriminate on the grounds of race, ethnicity, sex, gender, class or religion in connection with an election or political party;

6.5 damage or deface property, including the election posters, placards, banners and other election material of another party or candidate;

6.6 bar or inhibit access to meetings or to voters for the purposes of election campaigning;

6.7 carry or display weapons at political meetings or at marches, demonstrations, rallies or other public political events;

6.10 disrupt the work of election officials at a polling station or counting centre;

6.11 campaign or display campaign material within 100 metres of a polling station or counting centre.

Had this code been agreed and gazetted earlier, presumably the ESC would have scrutinised all campaign materials and statements for breaches.

It was unclear how the main parties’ code of conduct related to the statement published[41] by the youth of all parties who attended the ZIMCET-organised National Youth Convention at the beginning of March 2002. It was signed by 13 organisations, including NAGG, the MDC, ZANU-PF and ZANU-NDONGA. Inter alia it condemned political violence and demanded ‘an end to abusive language at political rallies … [which] only serves to foment animosity among the citizens of Zimbabwe’.

Notwithstanding clear evidence of who was mainly to blame for both the violence and the failure to reach agreement on the code of conduct, the ESC reportedly asked the self-confessed ZANU-PF Police Commissioner Chihuri ‘to investigate a third force believed to be causing chaos and confusion with a mission to discredit the whole election process by fanning violence’.[42] After ZANU-PF attacked an MDC office while two South African observers were inside, the ESC condemned, without naming the culprits,

‘in the strongest possible terms the attack that occurred in Kwekwe. International observers are invited by the Government of Zimbabwe to come and observe our elections. If political party supporters attack international observers, it is a smudge, not only on that political party, but also on the whole Zimbabwean electoral process.’

Government spokesman George Charamba also condemned the attack, but added that it

‘could only have been carried out by elements of a third force, supported by hostile foreign interests, who are bent on discrediting the Zimbabwean electoral process’. [43]

For all of the above reasons, together with its financial and administrative dependence on government departments, the ESC was widely regarded as less than impartial. It repeatedly averred – against all the evidence to the contrary – that it was (nearly) impossible to rig voting. It also denied receiving any formal complaint from the MDC about not being able to campaign in many rural areas, although this problem was later noted in many of the observers’ reports.

(b) The Election Directorate (ED)

Established under s 4 of the Electoral Act, the Election Directorate comprised chair Mariyawanda Nzuwa (appointed by Robert Mugabe), the Registrar-General (Tobaiwa Mudede) ex officio, and between two and ten other members appointed by non-constituency presidential appointee to Parliament, Patrick Chinamasa, as the Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs. Who exactly comprised the ED in March 2002, seemed to be information for which one might have to apply under the new Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act: it was not readily available in the public domain. Police Commissioner Chihuri sat, together with Nzuwa and the Registrar-General, at the table from which the results were announced. In the past, the permanent secretaries of Home Affairs, Justice, Local Government, the Public Service, Trade and Energy, Finance and Information had also been members, and presumably still were.

The ED’s overall function is to ensure ‘that elections are conducted efficiently, properly, freely and fairly’ by instructing and recommending to the Registrar-General (and others) how best to perform the functions of ‘co-ordinating the activities of Ministries and departments of Government in regard to the delimitation of constituencies, the registration of voters, the conduct of polls and all other matters connected with elections’.

31 January 2002 was Nomination Day for the Presidential election. On this day, the Electoral Supervisory Commission announced there were 5 479 100 names registered on the voters roll.[44] On 10 January 2002, official figures had reportedly showed 3,2 million urban, compared to 2,2 million rural voters registered.[45] Jonathan Moyo reportedly having regarded these figures as a transposition error, the state-controlled media promptly converted them to 3,4 million rural and 2,2 million urban of the 5,6 million voters registered![46]

The Registrar-General, together with all the constituency registrars, refused to release the exact numbers of voters registered in each constituency, claiming it was confidential.[47] The Electoral Supervisory Commission did, however, detail by constituency as well as province what it called ‘voter population’, without committing itself to the legality of whether this ‘population’ was actually registered on the voters roll. The Registrar-General also refused to release the final roll used.[48] The Herald gave discrepant figures for the final roll (5 654 185 vs 5 607 812). The difference between the larger of these figures and the roll as at 31 January 2002 was 175 085, almost half the 400 000 speculated to have been registered between nomination day and polling.

RW Johnson raised the demographic probability that all of these figures were much too high, reflecting a voters roll that had not been updated for years if not decades and yielding ‘a vast reservoir of [1,8 million] fictional voters who can then be mobilised at will when the going gets tough’. Johnson suggested a total roll of 3,84 million would be more accurate and, moreover, that the June 2000 roll had probably been inflated as well as that used in March 2002.[49]

‘In February 2002 an audit of the voter’s roll (as at the 7th January 2002) was carried out by Probe Market Research (affiliated to the Gallup Poll Group). The Registrar General refused access to the death register.

From a methodology that included 1) a physical check of 1675 names on the roll and 2) interviewing a sample of 1699 Zimbabweans, the following are salient findings:

§ Of those who were not registered, 39% said it was because they did not have proper ID documents.

§ 40% of those interviewed actually appeared on the voter’s roll in the constituency in which they say they are registered.

§ 50% of the names physically checked on the voter’s roll were found to be at the address stated on the roll. 22% were known but had moved from the address; 2% had moved out of the country and 5% were deceased.’ (Our emphasis)

The results of this audit strongly suggest that the results announced for many constituencies were, quite simply, impossible, not least because of the demographic upheavals that have resulted since 2000 from ‘fast-track land resettlement’. A probable underestimate of 70 000 internal refugees was reported in 2001; from February 2000 to March 2002, 53 184 farm-workers (excluding their dependants) were displaced from Mashonaland West alone.[51]

In the unacceptably-flawed voters roll were contained the conditions for breaching two of the most fundamental political rights – the right to vote and the equality of votes cast. Explicit disenfranchisement, however, was used only against those Zimbabwean citizens of foreign descent and those previously entitled to postal votes. This disenfranchisement has detailed been in Chapter 4. But there were other attempts, mainly procedural, thus on the face of it not intentional, to disenfranchise half of those ostensibly on the voters roll.

Disenfranchisement began with national identity cards (IDs). For many years, people have waited up to three years after applying before such cards are available. This problem affected particularly women married under customary law and new, first-time voters – young people who turned 18 and who were still awaiting their IDs. Zimbabwean youth bear the brunt of unemployment and what ZANU-PF sees as ungrateful ‘born-frees’ are known disproportionately to support opposition parties. But it was a ZANU-PF MP (Joram Gumbo, Mberengwa West) who asked in Parliament

‘In view of the fact that the Presidential elections are just nearby and our people do not have proper registration identity cards, can the Minister explain what is the government’s policy to expedite the registration of those members[52] who do not have the required documents?’

The answer was that the stringent requirements for witnesses to births were being relaxed and chiefs and headmen (recently granted huge pay increases by the State) were to

‘identify the people to be registered as true Zimbabweans… We also tried to guard against people who will try to get registered when they are not Zimbabweans. This is why we are involving the Chiefs and Headmen in rural areas because they are able to state that the person is a Zimbabwean. In the event that they perform their duties fraudulently, action will be taken against those Chief and Headman [sic]’.[53]

In practice, little appeared to be done to expedite the registration process and Learnmore Jongwe received no answer to his Parliamentary question to the Minister of Home Affairs as to whether the Registrar-General’s Office had stopped issuing national IDs until after the presidential election.[54] Tendai Shumba, of Magunje (Hurungwe district) failed to secure a national ID reportedly because she did not take a letter of recommendation from ZANU-PF officials.[55]

At numerous illegal roadblocks, national youth trainees demanded ZANU-PF membership cards and removed their identity cards[56] from travellers who lacked party cards. By polling, some 1 300 IDs had been reported stolen in Mutoko, Tsholotsho, Nkayi, Bulilimamangwe South, Kwekwe and Buhera North.

The proof of residence demanded by the amendments to s20 and s21 of the Electoral Act (GLAA s 3(e) and s 3(f)) could also be seen as deliberately disenfranchising the many Zimbabweans who are homeless as a consequence of ZANU-PF’s housing policy failures. Objecting to the amendments in bill form, MDC MPs had referred to

‘those people who are not able to produce evidence that they are residing at a particular place. We have got a lot of people who are homeless and even if they sleep in a drain, they are supposed to vote. They should not be denied the right to vote.’

At the other end of the class scale, the stringent new residence requirements also disenfranchised expatriates intending to return home to vote. At Beitbridge border post, immigration officials reportedly refused many of them entry until they ‘fixed their residence status’. Nonetheless, some 16 000 were reported to have crossed into Zimbabwe on Thursday 7 March through Beitbridge and Plumtree.[57]

The Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs also denied all prisoners (over 20 000) the right to vote. He was quoted as saying ‘They will not vote because once one is in jail, he automatically loses the right to vote’.[58] There is in fact no constitutional or legal bar to those remanded in custody or prisoners serving six months or less – the majority – being able to vote. But they have routinely been denied that basic right after all prisoners were allowed to vote in 1980. Nonetheless, in Hwange West constituency, Mobile 6 polling station was scheduled to spend the second day of polling at ‘Prison Camp’, somewhere near Sinamatela; and Mobile 2 spent day 2 at Chipinge prison, in Chipinge North constituency. Kadoma prison housed a fixed polling booth.

On the instructions of the Ministry of Higher Education and Technology, all tertiary education institutions were instructed to re-open on 18 March 2002, a week after polling. The majority of the University of Zimbabwe’s 12 000 students were reported to be registered in the Harare North constituency, where the main campus is located.[59] Students at the National University of Science and Technology, in Bulawayo, reportedly disputed their displacement at voting time from the Bulawayo South constituency.[60] The Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU) demanded that hostels and residences should remain open, to cater for those registered in their campus constituencies, while classes be cancelled to accommodate those who needed to go elsewhere to vote.[61] The campuses remained closed, and many UZ students were reportedly turned away from the polling station next to their campus, which was closed for some hours following their protests.

The only sensible counter to attempted disenfranchisement was, as an editorial[62] stressed, for everyone to turn out to vote, so observers could witness ‘more people … turned away than those who vote’, and so to create ‘legitimate grounds for contesting the result in the courts’. But the vast majority of polling booths were never observed, because there were so few observers.

The procedural integrity of the ballot

(a) Voter registration

The voters roll was declared open for inspection and changes from 19 November to 23 December 2001.[63] It was closed when polling dates were gazetted on 10 January 2002.[64]

Thereafter, it was ‘closed’ twice more – on 27 January and 3 March 2002. There were reports from many places, including Bulawayo,[65] Harare and Manicaland but mainly rural Mashonaland, of (under-age) voters registering for the first time or changing their constituencies as late as 3 March 2002.[66] Indeed, the MDC[67] obtained voter registration slips dated after 3 March 2002 which their holders had used to vote.

‘We have numerous voting slips such as the one above which were issued well after the voters roll had been officially closed… Note that the date on this slip clearly indicates voter registration continued after the gazetted closure of 3 March 2002. Our reports include registration even during polling days in some stations.’

Registration after the roll had been closed was ‘legalised’ by Registrar-General Tobaiwa Mudede (under the electoral amendments later struck down) finally closing the roll on 3 March 2002. One of the candidates, Robert Mugabe, personally validated Mudede’s actions after they had been struck down and ordered that the supplementary roll be available at all polling stations.[68] In practice, many polling venues did not get a copy.

Supplementary voters’ roll of person registered between first and second closure of voters’ rolls

5. (1) Notwithstanding any provision of the Act but subject to this section, the Registrar-General shall prepare a roll, called the “supplementary voters’ roll”, on which shall be included the names of persons who were registered as voters between the 27th January, 2002 and the 3rd March, 2002.

(2) Every presiding officer shall keep a copy of the supplementary voters’ roll.

(3) Upon inclusion of a voter in the supplementary voters’ roll in terms of subsection (1)—

(a) the voter shall, for all purposes of the Act, be regarded as registered on the roll for the constituency concerned and, if his name was registered on the roll for any other constituency, to have been transferred therefrom;

(b) the voter shall be entitled to be handed a ballot paper and thereafter the provisions of the Act shall apply, mutatis mutandis, in respect of that voter.

(4) No person who has been registered in terms of subsection (1) shall vote in any constituency other than the one in which he has been so registered, unless his name has subsequently been transferred to the roll of some other constituency in terms of section 34 of the Act; or

(5) Any person who contravenes subsection (4) shall be guilty of an offence and liable to a fine not exceeding $100,000 or to imprisonment for a period not exceeding one year or to both such fine and such imprisonment.

7. Anything which has been done before the date of commencement of this notice in the purported exercise of any of the provisions of the Act as amended by the General Laws Amendment Act, 2002 (No. 2 of 2002), and which would have been lawfully done if the General Laws Amendment Act, 2002, had been validly enacted on the 4th February, 2002, shall be deemed to have been lawfully done.

In June 2000, those turned away averaged 10-20% of those wishing to vote. Registrar-General Mudede had later been criticised by the state-controlled media and ZANU-PF as it lost mayoral elections and complained about the voters roll. The central committee reportedly noted that ‘The Registrar-General’s Office needs a deliberate move to restructure or disband the institution’.[69]

(b) Polling venues

For the March 2002 presidential election, the Electoral Supervisory Commission announced a ‘working figure’, likely to be increased, of 5 400 of polling stations, up over 40% from the 3 850 used in the June 2000 Parliamentary elections.[70] In the event, conflicting numbers of polling stations were eventually announced (4 548, 4 689, 4712[71]), but according to the Registrar-General’s lists, there were 4 067 fixed polling stations, plus 647 mobiles serving a total of 1 627 separate venues. So the overall total of polling venues was 5 694.

In one constituency, Matobo, there were discrepancies between the Registrar-General’s list and the information published in The Herald, the latter giving two more fixed and five fewer mobile stations, with an overall loss of one polling venue, compared to the official list. In fact, the official list was used. The MDC was reportedly never informed of certain unlisted mobile polling stations.[72] Its polling agents were unable to locate three advertised polling venues in Shurugwi.

Opening times were 7am-7pm in urban areas, 7am-5pm in the countryside – but with the proviso that they would remain open to allow anyone in a 100 metre-long queue to vote before closing.

Despite numerous calls, including in Parliament, for advance notification especially of the new localities, by 6 March the MDC had managed to find out the localities for only 15 of the 120 constituencies in time to release its list of polling agents by station. In 105 constituencies it could not then specify the stations for its named agents, which it continued to release over the last two days before polling. ZANU-PF obviously had privileged prior access to the list of venues, because it released a chaotically-disorganised but apparently complete list on 7 March 2002, the same day on which the ESC first published – only in The Herald – the official list of polling stations and presiding officers.

Polling venues in Harare and Chitungwiza were reduced from 249 to 167, giving an average registered voter load per polling venue of 5 272, compared to an average in urban constituencies of 3 843 and a national average of 993. For the 34 urban constituencies and 86 rural constituencies, on the ESC figures for voting, the number who cast their votes at each polling venue averaged 1 805 and 427 respectively. (On the Registrar-General’s figures, these averages were 1 725 and 440.) In Harare and Chitungwiza, on ESC figures 2 633 and on the Registrar-General’s count 2 490 voters actually cast ballots at each venue – overloads respectively of 45,9% and 44,3% on the urban average, 265% and 251% on the national average.

In addition to frustrating voters, these overloads severely overworked the polling officials. At one Harare venue, the single shift of officials worked from 5am on Saturday 9 March to 3.30am the following day, and opened again that Sunday from 7am to 10.30pm, before having to report at 6.30am on Monday 11 March for the unscheduled third day of balloting, which ended at 7pm. The rights of both voters and polling officials were severely abused by this intentional mess-up.

So were the educational rights of Zimbabwe’s children, all of whose schools were closed for a week (7-13 March 2002) to accommodate polling.[73]

Many polling stations were located at, or extremely close to, ZANU-PF and/or NYTS militia bases. In Marondera West, 12 of the 43 fixed polling stations were militia bases. So were three in Rushinga. Five Mutoko South, two Guruve South, 15 Mhondoro and 18 Murehwa North polling stations were next to such bases. Opposition polling agents recorded that voters were taken into these bases before voting. 842 polling stations (some fixed but most mobiles) were based on commercial farms occupied by ‘fast-track resettlers’ who could be presumed to support ZANU-PF.

(i) Ultra-violet light detectors

To prevent corrupting equality of the vote through multiple voting, every voter’s fingers had to be inked after checking through a UVL detector that that voter had not previously voted. No fingers were inked for any postal voter. MDC polling agents observed, in several polling stations in Nkayi, that certain voters were permitted by CIO agents in those stations to vote without having their fingers inked. Throughout Muzarabani, Mount Darwin North and South, and at four stations in Mutoko South, ZANU-PF members operated the UVL detectors.

In Chimanimani constituency, none of the 41 fixed and 16 mobile polling stations had working UVL detectors. Nor had three venues (Aziel Store, Kazunga and Nyamusewe) in Guruve South and one (Ndongwe) in Buhera South. At many other polling venues, UVL detectors malfunctioned for at least part of the polling period, in some (Harare) cases causing temporary closure of the stations.

In early December 2001, Justice minister Patrick Chinamasa envisaged ‘no problem’ in accepting transparent boxes were such to be donated for this election.[74] (For the June 2000 election, an offer from Denmark had been refused.) Two weeks later Chinamasa changed his mind, giving as grounds that Zimbabwe is ‘a timber-producing country’, the British allegedly ‘themselves refused to use transparent boxes’, and voters could see votes on ballots which had unfolded. By the end of January, he denied that any offer of free translucent boxes had been made by the UNDP.

‘I believe that there is no prejudice whatsoever to democratic process in continuing to use opaque ballot boxes. The recommendation of the SADC Parliamentary Forum, it is a recommendation.[75]

The MDC objected to the new regulations[76] restricting seals on wooden ballot boxes to the aperture, leaving the seams exposed; and to new provisions,[77] which allowed boxes to be sealed or opened whether or not any or all election agents, polling agents, monitors and observers were present. They suspected that agents, monitors and observers would be chased away and election officials could

‘do whatever you want with the ballot boxes. Our agents will not have any authority to be there… We are telling you that if the elections go ahead under these circumstances, those elections will be null and void…’[78]

Indeed, at least 1 400 MDC polling agents were ambushed, kidnapped, arrested and detained by the police and were unable to watch 52% of all ballot boxes for at least part if not (in some 5% of cases) all of the polling period. The MDC later recorded that, because of delays in accreditation or abduction of their polling agents, boxes in the following five constituencies were not able to be inspected before polling opened: Bindura, Hurungwe West, Matobo, Mutoko South and Tsholotsho. (12 000+ verified votes in Tsholotsho became 21 000+ in the formal announcement of results: perhaps one of the famous transposition errors?) Individual polling stations were similarly affected in another six constituencies: Seke (Mbuya Nehanda and Pamusasa/ Ruseirevi stations), Mutare North (Rupinda, Makwasa, Nyamaende and Neurara), Guruve South (Chiwanzamarara), Zvimba North (Chininga), Gokwe South and West (five unnamed stations each), and most of Gokwe North. And the MDC polling agent was chased away from the box, outside, to sleep, at the Showgrounds in Goromonzi.

Ballot boxes were reportedly not sealed according to law at Rusike and Chibvute polling stations in Goromonzi, and at Caesar Mine in Mazowe West (whence the MDC polling agent was chased away). At Chisape PS in Hurungwe East the MDC seal was not permitted to be affixed.[79] MDC polling agents were arrested on Monday night and prevented from guarding the ballot boxes at counting centres in Mutoko, UMP, Guruve and Raffingora.[80] Uniformed police who refused to give their force numbers ordered both MDC and ZANU-PF polling agents out of the Chikuku PS (Guruve North) for three hours. This station was reportedly staffed by known ZANU-PF activists.[81]

Election agents were, under the first set of new regulations dated 17 January 2002,[82] permitted only ‘to inspect any vehicle transporting ballot boxes at the polling station and at the counting centre; and to follow the vehicle in his or her own transport’, but not to travel in or on vehicles transporting ballot boxes. Not only the MDC expected that vehicles following would be intercepted by militia while ballot boxes were replaced.[83]

Probably as a result of international observers’ representations, this prohibition was removed in SI 34/2002 on 22 February 2002, in another amendment to s 16A(2)(a) of the Electoral Regulations.[84] Interestingly, it only become publicly available on 1 March 2002, in a package of Government Gazettes, and was given no publicity by any of the media.

‘Not more than one monitor, polling agent per candidate and police officer shall be permitted, with the presiding officer, to inspect the ballot boxes to be loaded on the vehicle that will transport the ballot boxes from the polling station to the counting centre, and to travel in the vehicle transporting these ballot boxes.’

This major concession (repeated also for the local government elections scheduled in Harare and Chitungwiza concurrently with the presidential election) relieved much of the anxiety about rigging, but did not in itself remove the problem that civilians needed special authorisation to travel on Air Force of Zimbabwe transport helicopters (which reportedly moved an unspecified number of Gokwe polling boxes into polling venues and counting centres without polling agents or observers on board).[85] And from Vhombozi polling station, in Mudzi, the MDC polling agent was not allowed to accompany the box to the counting centre.

In Rushinga, the ballot boxes from eight polling stations were moved into the counting centre at night, without polling agents aboard. Mazowe West’s Mobile 13, with ballot box, was taken to Ungubvi Township in Mazowe East after the MDC’s polling agent was chased away. The UK Daily Telegraph’s correspondent reported that one Bubi-Umguza ballot box sealed with 137 votes inside disappeared from a mobile station, only to reappear later with an additional 1 000 ballot papers inside.[86] This may have been the Nyandulu ballot box reported by the MDC polling agent to have been ‘confiscated by war vets’. Another reported from Kadoma East that ‘one ballot box spent the night with a war vet in his house’. A ZANU-PF truck unsuccessfully tried to hijack ballot boxes from three unnamed polling stations in Bulilimamangwe South.[87]

(d) Ballot Papers

Government tendered for enough ‘security white paper’ to print seven million ballot papers. (1997 Inter-Censal figures suggested a maximum voting population of 7 092 426, not allowing for any subsequent deaths or emigration.) The Government Tender Board and the Department of Printing and Stationery refused comment for ‘security reasons’.

Quite why enough paper for 7 million voting papers was required was puzzling. In 2000, there had been only 5 298 904 registered voters, of whom 2 556 711 were counted as having voted. On 31 January 2002, 5 479 100 were registered. Zimbabwe’s deaths from AIDS alone are running at some 7 000 per week, with over 160 000 deaths in 1999. Emigration, both official and unofficial, has rocketed, while the birth rate has plummetted (though that will feed through to voting only in 2020).

On 6 March 2002, the ESC ‘could not say’ how many ballot papers had been printed. Registrar-General Tobaiwa Mudede refused to give the number of ballots printed,[88] but Simon Muchemenyi of his office was quoted as saying ‘it is enough to cater for the needs’.[89] Chairman Gula-Ndebele had earlier promised (claiming the ESC had been unaware of such practices) to investigate reports (which the media were unable to confirm independently in late January), that ZANU-PF was ‘distributing unauthorised ballot papers’ in rural areas of Mashonaland East, Manicaland, Midlands and Masvingo provinces[90] and ‘assaulting those who failed to appropriately mark President Mugabe’s slot on the ballots’.[91] The results of the ESC’s investigations were not publicly reported.

If all seven million ballot papers were indeed printed, probably half would have been ‘surplus’ and available for rigging, possibly by double-printing serial numbers to facilitate substitution of real votes. The MDC reported that, during polling,

‘On an individual basis, in the rural areas, people were given a ballot already marked and told to come out [of the polling booth] with an unmarked ballot. The militia / war vets easily monitored this.’[92]

Duplicate-numbering worried the MDC, which publicly feared the introduction and/or substitution of pre-filled ballot boxes, via ZANU-PF’s Mashonaland Central strongholds.[93] To guard against this possibility, ‘as an objective position which protects everyone’, the MDC demanded that polling agents be allowed ‘to mark all the ballot papers so there is no possibility of any such electoral fraud’.[94] This was not done. Instead, the Sunday Mail claimed that the MDC allocated funds to one of its (unnamed) white organisers ‘for the sole purpose of ensuring the availability of fake ballot boxes and papers in order to ensure that the MDC claims of election rigging are proven correct’.[95]

Some ballot books went missing during polling. Minister of the Environment and Tourism, Francis Nhema, was reported to have removed the ballot papers with serial numbers 0056101-0056707 from the Mobile 3 booth at Zvishasha, in his constituency of Shurugwi.[96] The MDC recorded that book numbers 008302-0083400, 0083401-500 and 0083501-600 disappeared from the Chief’s Hall in Mutare North and were taken to the Constituency Registrar’s office.[97]

(e) Postal Ballots

The postal ballot was restricted, to exclude disaffected expatriate Zimbabweans who had fled the politico-economic crisis and those displaced from their constituencies of registration. When the electoral amendments under the GLAA were voided by the Supreme Court, the postal ballot restrictions were reinstated by Robert Mugabe in SI 41D/2002.

4. (1) Notwithstanding Part XV of the Act, no voter shall be entitled to receive a postal ballot paper unless his absence from his constituency or inability to attend a polling station, as the case may be, is or will be occasioned by—

(a) duty as a member of a disciplined force or as a constituency registrar, presiding officer, polling officer or counting officer; or

(a) all applications for postal ballot papers shall be made to the Registrar-General;

(b) applications for postal ballot papers by members of a disciplined force may be made to the Registrar-General through their commanding officers;

(c) applications for postal ballot papers shall be delivered so as to reach the Registrar-General not later than such date as the Registrar-General may specify by notice in the Gazette, either in relation to applications generally or any class thereof;

(d) the Registrar-General shall exercise all the functions of a constituency registrar in terms of the Act and any regulations made thereunder in respect of—

(i) applications for postal ballot papers delivered to him in terms of this section; and

(3) Notwithstanding subsection (2) of section 66 of the Act, a constituency registrar may seal the postal ballot box at any time before the commencement of polling on the polling day or the first polling day, as the case may be, in the constituency concerned, and shall give not less than 24 hours’ notice to candidates or their election agents of the time and place at which he will seal the postal ballot box.

(4) Notwithstanding subsection (4) of section 66 of the Act, where a constituency registrar receives covering envelopes before he has sealed the postal ballot box, he shall retain them in safe custody until he has sealed the postal ballot box and shall then place them unopened therein.

(5) Save as modified by this section, Part XV of that Act, in particular the provisions thereof relating to the completion of postal ballot papers, the posting or delivery of completed postal ballot papers to constituency registrars and the custody of postal ballot papers, shall apply, mutatis mutandis, in respect of voting by post in the elections.

There had apparently been no monitoring, much less observation, of the postal voting procedures.[98] Those exercising postal votes had, apparently, not had their fingers ‘inked’. The Registrar-General admitted it was possible that those who had exercised postal ballots might vote again if posted to their own constituencies (as MDC polling agents witnessed in Makoni North), but refused to give the number of those who cast postal votes.[99]

Virtually no information was available on postal ballots. Only for Mashonaland West province did the ESC include 1 053 postal ballots in its final tally. In Mutare Central (where all postal ballots had been invalidated after the June 2000 election), only 180 of 2 000 approved were reported to have been cast, and 25 were not accounted for.[100] According to MDC records, only 19 of 193 postal votes counted in Nyanga had officially been stamped.

(f) Electoral and polling agents

ZANU-PF reportedly barred the MDC from recruiting polling agents in Mount Darwin district and Dema in the Seke constituency.[101]

The MDC reported that the training of 6 000 of its polling agents had been disrupted, together with their deployment to polling stations; that in Matobo deployment was delayed by the Registrar-General’s accreditation procedures; that in the distortion of these procedures, not only had the Registrar-General refused to accredit many MDC’s electoral agents because they had not been allocated to specific polling stations, but polling officials at Chiwanzamarara (Guruve South), Mbuya Nehanda (Seke) and Magudu and Nyamhora (Uzumba-Maramba-Pfungwe) had refused to accept accreditation where it had been properly done and denied MDC polling agents access to the stations. At many polling stations in Bikita West, Chirumanzu, Zvimba North and both of the Mount Darwin constituencies, MDC polling agents were denied access to their stations by ZANU-PF. In one unspecified Manicaland constituency, 29 of 54 polling stations went without 100 opposition polling agents refused admission by their ZANU-PF counterparts.[102]

Over 1 400 MDC polling agents, plus logistics volunteers, were denied access to their polling stations, or arrested and held in custody until after the election was concluded.[103] It is unclear whether this figure included the separately-reported arrests of 60 MDC polling agents in Mvuma after counting. In Mashonaland West, 42 white farmers were detained on charges of conspiring to interfere with the electoral process by feeding MDC polling agents and maintaining a communications network. Among them were 12 Raffingora farmers, detained between 8-12 March 2002 before being released on Z$50 000 bail each. Similar detentions occurred in Manicaland. All interfered with the MDC’s organisational capacity during polling itself. Moreover, hundreds more polling agents were ambushed en route to their stations. Some were kidnapped, most fled into the bush.

At least 20 of the opposition’s polling agents were ‘hunted down’, threatened with death and chased out of their Lupane villages.[104] Overall, MDC polling and/or electoral agents were assaulted at 18 polling stations, abducted from another 71, and many hundreds, perhaps 2 000, arrested at or en route to polling or counting centres.

As a result of all of these obstacles, by 10am on the first day of polling, the MDC did not have its polling agents in 52% of the (rural) polling stations. This percentage had fallen only to 40% by the second day.[105] The MDC noted that, for a combination of the reasons given above, throughout the voting period it had no ‘meaningful’ polling agent presence at any of the 56 polling stations in Mutasa constituency.[106] The same applied, throughout polling, to Chinomwe (Zvimba North), five polling stations in each of Gokwe South and Gokwe West, Mobile 1 in Mount Darwin North, Mobiles 16 and 18 in Bubi-Umguza. With data in from only 30% of its polling agents, 382 had been denied access to polling stations and another 90 had been ‘rendered ineffective’ as agents, across the north of the country excluding Harare province.

The MDC’s electoral agents were also unable to function as envisaged by our electoral law. Throughout the count in Guruve North, Muzarabani and both Mutoko constituencies, the MDC did not have any electoral agents present. In both Mount Darwin constituencies, plus Shamva, UMP and Zvimba North, MDC electoral agents were present for only part of the count. Four electoral agents were arrested, in Guruve North and South, Muzarabani and Dzivarasekwa. In Dzivarasekwa (after being released), Kambuzuma, Bindura, Mhondoro, Mt Darwin North and Buhera North, they were denied their right to verify the ballot figures provided to the Registrar General’s office.

By the end of polling, many opposition polling agents were still missing. By early April 2002, six had been reported killed: Ernest Gatsi (Guruve North), Tafireyinyika Gwaze (Mutoko North), Petros Jeka (Masvingo North), Donald Jeranyama (Mutasa), Edwin Romio (Mutoko / Murehwa ?), and Fanuel White (Guruve North).

Quite clearly, in one way or another, the institutional ‘guarantees’ against rigging failed in an unacceptably high proportion of polling venues, badly impairing the equality of the vote in Zimbabwe’s 2002 Presidential Election.

[1] MPOI Survey Results (Special Supplement to the Daily News 6.3.02).

[2] Parliamentary Debates 28,46:4142, 4145 (29 January 2002).

[3] DN 4.4.02.

[4] It was unclear whether he had retired from the army, since he still occupied an office at Defence HQ (ZI 8.2.02).

[5] ZI 15.2.02.

[6] FG 31.1.02.

[7] Std 3.2.02.

[8] SI 17A/2002, s 6.

[9] SI 34/2002, s 5.

[10] FG 14.2.02.

[11] FG 7.3.02; H 7.3.02

[12] FG 14.2.02.

[13] FG 31.1.02; Zimbabwe blacklisted the UK, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands and Germany (Std 10.2.02). Zimbabwe insisted that the EU-ACP delegation be led by an ACP citizen.

[14] Zimbabwe had also threatened to throw out Stephan Amer, the Swedish spokesman for the EU mission, before the mission was withdrawn (DN 19.2.02).

[15] H 16.2.02; ZI 22.2.02.

[16] H 19.2.02.

[17] DN 5.3.02.

[18] FG 7.3.02.

[19] 1.3.02.

[20] DN 2.3.02.

[21] ZI 15, 22.2.02.

[22] DN 23.2.02.

[23] DN 26.2.02.

[24] DN 7.3.02.

[25] DN 7.3.02.

[26] H 5.3.02.

[27] DN 20.2.02.

[28] DN 1.3.02.

[29] ‘We had [foreign media] crews who actually … in Mashonaland East, stage-managed violence to get dramatic copy and footage’ (Parliamentary Debates 28,48:4396 31 January 2002); SM 3.3.02.

[30] H 12.2.02.

[31] SI 34/2002, 42A/2002.

[32] H 16.2.02.

[33] H 6.3.02.

[34] Std 10.3.02 (ZESN Press Statement).

[35] H 7.3.02.

[36] FG 7.3.02.

[37] DN 22.2.02.

[38] DN 6.3.02.

[39] DN 21.2.02.

[40] SI 42C/2002, 8 March 2002.

[41] DN 9.3.02.

[42] H 7.3.02.

[43] SM 24.2.02.

[44] An MDC ‘audit’ unearthed 524 duplications and 107 deceased voters still registered.

[45] H 12.3.02.

[46] H 11.3.02.

[47] DN 10.3.02.

[48] H 7.3.02.

[49] ‘How Mudede managed to steal the election for Mugabe’ (DN 2.4.02).

[50] Preliminary Report: Second Working Draft Presidential Elections of Zimbabwe 9-11 March 2002, page 14.

[51] FG 4.4.02; CFU spokesperson on SW Radio Africa 6.3.02.

[52] Presumably of his own party. Parliamentary Debates 28,24:1881 (31 October 2001).

[53] Parliamentary Debates 28,24:1881-2 (31 October 2001).

[54] Parliamentary Debates 28,44:3947 (23 January 2002). It did stop issuing new passports (SM 3.3.02).

[55] DN 7.3.02.

[56] People had earlier been mandated to carry their national IDs in all public places by the Public Order and Security Act (s 32(2)). Without an ID (or an acceptable alternative (passport or driver’s licence) no-one can vote. The majority of Zimbabweans possess only IDs. To be deprived of them is to be disenfranchised.

[57] Std 10.3.02.

[58] H 15.1.02.

[59] Std 3.2.02.

[60] DN 8.2.02.

[61] ZINASU Press Statement (DN 2.3.02).

[62] DN 1.3.02.

[63] Hundreds of registration officials were still awaiting their pay, apparently promised two days after they had started work, at the end of January 2002 (DN 8.1.02).

[64] SI 3A/2002, 10 January 2002.

[65] ZANU-PF reportedly exhorted its Magwegwe supporters to submit their children’s names to be registered as voters well after the voters roll had first been closed (Daily News 19 February 2002).

[66] DN 6,7.3.02; FG 6.3.02.

[67] Preliminary Report: Second Working Draft Presidential Elections of Zimbabwe 9-11 March 2002, page

Chapter 6: Undermining Political Rights: Electoral Institutions and Preparations