Zimbabwe go to the polls on Saturday

By Wilson Watson

HARARAE, Zimbabwe- Zimbabweans on Saturday go to the polls to select, a President, Members of Parliament, Senators and Councilors in its first harmonized election since it attained independence in 1980.
Since January, prospective candidates have been moving across the country and constituencies seeking to obtain the support of the voters.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, the organization that runs the elections said all was now in place for the elections.

“We concluded training of polling officers on Monday we have dispatched them to their various areas awaiting the elections. We have printed more than 9 million ballot boxes and we are now really ready for the elections,” said ZEC Deputy Chief Elections Officer Utloile Silaigwana.
Zimbabwe has more than 6 million registered voters and ZEC has said more than 9 000 polling stations have been set countrywide.
Silaigwana said election results for MPs, Senators and Councilors will be announced at constituency command centers while the collated results of the Presidential election will be announced from the national command centre in Harare.

A number of observes have been accredited to monitor the elections. Most of the observes are mainly from the local communities and the Southern African Development Community.
The country refused to accredit observers and some journalists from the European countries and other areas perceived to be hostile to Zimbabwe
About 300 foreign journalists applied to cover the harmonized elections in which the Government suspected that some were “uninvited observers and security personnel” from perceived hostile countries.

Some of the journalists from more than 70 media organizations are from some Islamic states, from Africa, Britain, America, Germany, Canada, some Nordic countries, Ireland, Portugal, Japan, Australia, France and the Netherlands On the presidential race, Mugabe faces challenge from main opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai who nearly won the 200 presidential race, former finance minister Simba Makoni who announced his bid three months before the elections and little know Langton Tawungana
Makoni and Tawunga are standing as independent candidates. The candidates have been hauling insults at each other during campaign rallies as they seek people’s votes.

Under Zimbabwean law, a president has to win 51 percent of the voters and if not a re-run will be held between the first and second candidates, 21 days after the announcement of the first results.
In the Parliamentary race, a number of candidates from the ruling Zanu PF, two factions of the MDC, numerous other smaller parties and independent candidates vie for 210 seats while candidates from the same affiliates battle for 60 senatorial seats and 1 958 council seats.
This means that a voter will be required to vote for four people.
The Zimbabwe elections have attracted a lot of attention from with and abroad as many hope that the election will bring sanity to the economy of the country.

The country is in the middle of a serious economic decline that has seen inflation spiraling and gross allegations of human rights by Government institutions.
Opposition parties blame the problems on President Mugabe’ policies, while Mugabe said the problem have been necessitated by sanctions imposed by former colonizer Britain and her EU allies at the instigation of opposition parties in the country.
On Tuesday the United States’ State Department stated its concerns in regards to the upcoming elections saying that actions of the Zimbabwean government will preclude free and fair elections on March 29.

“Independent organizations report extensive pre-election irregularities, such as inaccurate voter rolls violence and intimidation of competing political parties and civil society; overproduction of postal ballots for police, military, diplomats, and electoral officials and absence of independent observation of the counting of postal votes to prevent multiple voting; inadequate polling stations in urban areas; bias against the opposition in the government-controlled media; permission for police to be present inside polling stations in breach of the recent SADC-brokered agreement; and politicized distribution of government-controlled food, and other benefits and government resources”.

The State Department called on the government of Zimbabwe, including the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, to take concrete actions to address the significant shortcomings, including respecting the human rights and fundamental freedoms of the Zimbabwean people. Despite these obstacles, we encourage all Zimbabweans to exercise their democratic right to vote in a peaceful and orderly manner.