Zimbabwe braces for poll, with positive messages by the police and army

THIS week it was surprising for some media to be invited to attend a press conference at national police headquarters, not far from Zimbabwe’s old and elegant State House.

Apart from so much other harassment and outrageous media restrictions, most foreign or privately-owned media were disallowed from attending most state press conferences for the last 18 years.

The police at the conference are part of the election task team, we were told. They were pleasant and helpful.

Even police national spokesperson Charity Charamba was OK. She smiled.

For years she rarely answered her phone and if she did she always said she had no information. And then hung up.

But the police are in an odd position now.

One way or another – and we don’t know how or why – they appear to be largely restricted to their stations since the soft coup d’etat last November which brought Emmerson Mnangagwa to power.

For the last couple of years, police were everywhere, running unofficial roadblocks and illegally fleecing drivers for spot fines. Their incessant roadblocks put off many tourists visiting resorts, such as Victoria Falls.

The coup ended the dreadful roadblocks.

Police were confined to barracks and eight months later are hardly seen in public, so Harare’s traffic along its appalling roads is wild, dangerous, lawless.

But the police will be back in the public eye, and will be on duty for the July 30 elections and will guard the ballots and attend to matters at more then 10 000 polling stations, some in the inhospitable distant countryside. This is what the welcome press conference was about.

Zimbabwe’s constitution makes it clear that no member of the security forces may promote any political party at any time, even in plain clothes and off duty.

There is a long report from an NGO, the Zimbabwe Democracy Institute, which claims that the military is around, in numbers, especially in rural areas, and that many villagers are intimidated by their presence.

Several other well-travelled professionals who travel weekly for work in huge chunks of agricultural rural areas and vil- lages say they have not noticed any army presence anywhere “out there”.

Several middle-aged people in three small villages who need government food aid and who live 60km east of Harare, said they haven’t seen the army at all since last year, but would be nervous if the army begin (illegally) canvassing for Zanu-PF in their area.

But now, on the eve of these elections, there is still widespread relief that “the old man” (Mugabe) is gone, even among the 67% of voters living in poverty within a feudal society in rural areas.

Most of them it seems sup- port Zanu-PF, but it is uncertain how much of that support comes from fear of the party which ruled their lives from the 1970s war.

Most have never known any political party beyond Zanu-PF and have no memory of previous minority white rule.

Zanu- PF is in control of every aspect of life – the central bank, the judiciary, nearly all infrastructure, nearly all media, including the only TV channel, the vast civil service, and the enormous, chaotic and largely bankrupt parastatals.

There are ever increasing arrivals of foreign observers. They are busy.

They were out there on Thursday evening when the police, who will be on duty on election day, began to secretly and without supervision, postal voting.

Few democrats have much respect for observers from the Southern African Development Community or the AU.

They remember them from the past – obedient to Zanu-PF and supportive of Mugabe even in the darkest of days.

No one even mentions that South Africa appears missing at these elections: that’s irrelevant given its own partisan record over dark days post 2000.

So do we know who is going to win? No. And there is still nearly three weeks to go and few posters are up yet, and Zanu-PF has all the resources.

But its leader, Mnangagwa, is at least in public, so different from Mugabe, even though the two share condemnation for appalling human rights abuses against the opposition after independence and post 2000.

But insiders say there are others in Zanu-PF who have come forward for this election and are hard working, honourable and will not be dictated to by any of the largely corrupt tier of older Zanu- PF politicians who rose to dominance under Mugabe.