South African civil society groups came back from Zimbabwe disillusioned about the state of democracy in the country, they said on Tuesday.
After meeting more than 20 organisations and attending public meetings and rallies, the six-member delegation decided that ”only the most optimistic MDC [opposition Movement for Democratic Change] politicians” could hope for political change through free and fair elections, a statement from the group said.
At a press briefing in Johannesburg, Anti-Privatisation Forum (APF) member Nicolas Dieltiens described some of the tactics the ruling Zanu-PF party is using to ensure that it remains in power after March 31.
These include: no voter education by anyone except the government-dominated electoral commission; only a handful of international observers; only announcing the approved Zimbabwean observers two days before the elections; and prevention of access to the voters’ roll, which is rumoured to be highly inflated.
”There is an expectation of violence among the electorate. This expectation, together with the lack of confidence in the display of free election campaigning and experiences of previous elections lead to great voter apathy,” said Dieltiens.
”This apathy would suggest that people would rather not vote than participate in elections they know will be undemocratic. The consensus emerging from our respondents was that the ruling party had only diverted its electoral strategy from violent intent to one in favour of more discreet coercion and manipulation of results,” the delegation said in its report.
According to the delegation, the election campaign in the country cannot be described as democratic, because of the repressive laws in place in Zimbabwe.
These laws include the Public Order and Security Act (Posa), the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) and the NGO Bill that is still pending.
”Under Posa, any meeting of three or more individuals that could feature discussion of a political nature cannot take place without the prior approval of the police within four days of the meeting,” the delegation states.
According to the delegates, the AIPPA has resulted in the disappearance of an independent press in Zimbabwe.
”The only daily papers available in the country are government mouthpieces. Only one independent weekly newspaper remains.”
”The voters’ roll is inaccessible, not only to NGOs but also for participants in the elections,” said Daniel Molokele of the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition.
”There are rumoured to be 800 000 to one million dead people on the voters’ roll and these dead people will actually vote. Someone will make sure that all these names vote for Zanu-PF.”
The group took a ”strategic decision” not to meet any Zanu-PF representatives after the way a delegation from the Congress of South African Trade Unions was treated last month when it tried to enter the country, said Laurence Ntuli, also from the APF.
The group was invited by the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition and involved the APF, the Landless People’s Movement and Jubilee South Africa.
Meanwhile, the planned visit by two United States congressional officials to assess plans for the election will be treated as ”routine”, despite Harare’s refusal to accept US vote observers, the foreign affairs ministry said.
”We will obviously not take them as election observers since their country is not on the list of invited foreign observers,” foreign affairs ministry spokesperson Parvelyn Musaka was quoted as saying in the state-run daily The Herald.
”Theirs would be taken as just a routine one since they have already been here” assessing the election climate,” she said. ”Zimbabwe and the US have not severed ties despite the strained relationship …”
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has branded Zimbabwe one of the world’s ”outposts of tyranny”.
Observers from the US, European Union and Commonwealth are among those not invited for the March 31 parliamentary elections, after condemning previous polls in 2000 and 2002.
A statement from the US embassy said Pearl-Alice March and Malik Chaka, who arrived on Sunday for a five-day visit, are responsible for advising the US House of Representatives International Relations Committee on African issues, and will be ”assessing the status of the upcoming Zimbabwe election, current economic and health conditions as well as important bilateral issues between the US and Zimbabwe”.
They plan to meet members of the government, Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party and Morgan Tsvangirai’s opposition MDC, said the statement.