We’ve nothing to fear from observers with integrity

THE August harmonised elections could be among the most intensively observed in Zimbabwean history, since the Government, the Zimbabwe Election Commission and other authorities are keen to reassure everyone that we can run honest elections that produce credible results.

At the centre of the process are the Zimbabweans themselves. For a start every Parliamentary candidate is entitled, by law, to have an agent at every polling station throughout the voting and counting stages.

This means every serious major party should have someone at every station in the entire country.

Those National Assembly candidates who cannot find the small committed group involved, cannot really be serious candidates, since at most only a dozen people are needed, although the most serious parties will also have others ready to fill vacancies or back up their candidates with other services.

At the same time, the courts can be involved at a very early stage. All election petitions now have to be heard promptly, the Parliamentary ones before a High Court judge and any challenge over the Presidential poll before the Constitutional Court.

The Judicial Service Commission and the Chief Justice showed at that mini-general election held to contest all the vacancies that occurred during the worst of Covid-19, that there were quite prepared to put a lot of judges on standby, that are ready to defer their other normal matters and give a petition maximum priority. In fact there were no petitions in that poll, it went so well.

This is the prime guarantee that our elections will be run properly, impartially and openly. No one needs election agents from other parties gathering solid evidence that will impress a neutral judge, and judges are trained and able to assess evidence and if it is solid to make appropriate decisions.

They can also differentiate between a bad loser making vague allegations without a shred of evidence and an aggrieved person who can bring something solid into a courtroom, with the judge then having to decide how much effect that solid evidence might have had on the poll result. There are also Zimbabwean groups accredited as observers who have no connection with any particular party and no axe to grind, except to be around to help ensure that every voter can make their choice, whatever it is.

Besides these we have foreign observers. Some of the foreign observer teams have an entitlement under treaty to be present.

SADC has an agreement that the rest of the grouping will assemble a team to observe each member’s elections and issue a report when the process is over, and the courts have dealt with any challenges.

This makes a lot of sense. We all want our neighbours to be normal, stable and peaceful democratic countries with Governments put in place by majority consent.

Half of us fought liberation wars to ensure that would happen. So we are all quite happy to enter what almost amounts to a mutual guarantee that elections will be run properly and transparently.

Should there ever be, and this is now highly unlikely, a dubious election in the SADC region, the other members can take joint appropriate action. And generally people accept that it is first difficult to fool the neighbours, at any level from a suburban street upwards, and that secondly the neighbours have the right to ensure that their street or suburb or geographical region is a functional area.

SADC members can, and have, insisted that everyone who takes part in a certified election accepts the results, and again this has now become largely routine.

Losers might be very disappointed, even intensely disappointed, but these days they accept that regional certification, as well as using their own courts if there is something wrong. This is why the final SADC report comes after the last court case.

The African Union also has rights on the continent to check out elections, although largely relies on the neighbourhood groupings to do most of the heavy lifting, but is there to back them up where necessary, and in any case to give its imprimatur to clean and honest elections, and where necessary to back regional efforts to make sure the losers accept the results, and even that the winners behave decently.

Outside the continental and regional teams, many countries have other independent teams. The Commonwealth, for example, offers members an observation service.

It is not compulsory, but many members find it useful to help cope with bad losers bad mouthing the winners. Again there is a lot of experience in that organisation and it is fairly easy to assemble a modest team of people who can step back from the fray and have a good look, without trying to manipulate the result. Zimbabwe is not a Commonwealth member, yet, but is the only active applicant, so there might be some diplomatic discussion.

But in any case, only three other SADC members are not Commonwealth members and all our immediate neighbours are, so a large majority of the SADC team are likely to be citizens of Commonwealth members and so their final report will, at least, be of high interest for the Commonwealth Secretariat and members and have some influence on our application.

President Mnangagwa made it clear this week that he is in favour of a fairly wide range of observers, largely so that investors and potential investors can be reassured that Zimbabwe runs respectable elections producing honest results, and some of those ready to put in their money might like to know that a fellow national was around and found everything on the up-and-up.

There are potential observers who are extremely partisan, and cannot understand why Zimbabweans might vote for anyone except their favoured candidates.

But it should be relatively easy to find observers of high integrity and independence from almost any area of the world, whose word is respected and who can be trusted to say what they saw, good or bad, and give their considered opinion.

But in the end, we all need to understand that the actual result of every election from ward to President comes from Zimbabweans exercising their democratic right to choose who they want, and that the primary safeguards are what we have developed ourselves, from the election agents in the polling stations all the way to the Chief Justice presiding over the Constitutional Court.

External observers are just like an audit report, and we have reached the stage ourselves where we can expect a decent report, that everything was done according to law and the laws were good laws.

Like all audit reports, there will always be a couple of suggestions to make the process even better next time, but everyone knows the difference between a good and bad report, and these days we can expect a very high grade.