By Nomusa Garikai | A few weeks ago, Team Pachedu, a group of IT savvy Zimbabweans, revealed some pretty shocking irregularities and illegalities in the voters’ roll such as the transfer of some voters from one Polling Station to another in another ward or constituency, away from their registered home addresses which had not changed. Only ZEC staff could have done this!
It took some IT expertise to extract these irregularities and illegalities the voters’ roll data Team Pachedu had received from ZEC. It should be noted that ZEC has never ever produced a verified voters’ roll in the country’s 42 years since independence. And ZEC has never ever produced a voters’ roll in the format suitable for analysis and auditing although this is a legal requirement.
The European Union had a 246 strong team of election observers for the 2018 Zimbabwe elections. The team was not impressed with ZEC’s conduct of the elections.
“The electoral commission (ZEC) lacked full independence and appeared to not always act in an impartial manner. The final results as announced by the Electoral Commission contained numerous errors and lacked adequate traceability, transparency and verifiability. As such, many aspects of the 2018 elections in Zimbabwe failed to meet international standards,” state the EU Observer Mission final report.
Team Pachedu’s findings was the smoking gun the EU Observer Mission report lacked!
ZEC was clearly surprise at the detailed revelations uncovered by Team Pachedu and the commission’s knee-jerk reaction was to discredit Team Pachedu.
“We would like to put it on record that Team Pachedu has, indeed, submitted our concerns to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) and it has not responded,” said Team Pachedu in a statement.
“We have also personally sent it requests for various information which it has ignored. (We had asked for a full list of candidates from the January 26 nomination court, as well as a full list of accredited observers for the March 26 by-elections). ZEC has not responded to our request.
“ZEC’s claim that it is only accountable to Parliament is also false. The Electoral Act requires ZEC to keep voters and the general public informed.
“One such way to do that is to gazette any changes it makes to the voters roll which have not expressly been requested by the voter.
“ZEC has never gazetted a list of the changes it made.”
ZEC has since fired most of its IT personal. They will be replaced by the Israel NIKUV vote rigging experts or some such experts.
Team Pachedu will find it very difficult to get any voters’ roll data from ZEC and even if they get any data, it will be near impossible to decipher.
ZEC is obliged by law to produce a verified voters’ roll but we can be 100% certain that, once again, ZEC will not produce one. We can also be 100% certain that Zanu PF is rigging these elections.
Ironically, we are also 100% certain that the MDC/CCC will participate in the 2023 elections, knowing fully well that Zanu PF is rigging the elections and that by participating they are giving Zanu PF legitimacy. Chamisa and his MDC/CCC friends are participating for the same reason they did not implement even one token reform during the 2008 to 2013 GNU when they had the golden opportunity to do so – greed.
Robert Mugabe bribed Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends with the trappings of high office they forgot about implementing reforms. “Mazivanhu eMDC adzidza kudya anyere!” (MDC leaders have learned to enjoy the gravy train good life; they will never rock the boat!) boasted Zanu PF cronies when asked why MDC leaders were not implementing the democratic reforms during the GNU.
Zanu PF has since learned that the MDC/CCC will participate in the elections giving Zanu PF legitimacy regardless how flawed the process got as long as they are assured of winning a few gravy train seats. Since the 2018 elections Mnangagwa has sweetened the bribe by offering all presidential race candidates additional perks and benefit if they joined POLAD.
“This time I assure you, there will be no rigging, I now have eyes in ZEC, I am being briefed about their every move and even if they want to rig, we will know in advance and act to avert it,” Nelson Chamisa assured his 40 000 strong supporters in Gweru last weekend.
Before the 2018 elections Chamisa made a similar claim. “MDC A has stringent measures to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections” he said in Mutare. It was all just hot air as Zanu PF blatantly rigged that election. Likewise, Zanu PF is rigging these 2023 elections.
As much as Team Pachedu would want 2023 elections to be free, fair and credible; to have a clean and verified voters’ roll, at least; it is clear that will never happen when ZEC is ignoring request and legal obligation to gazette voters’ roll changes, produce a verified voters’ roll, etc. Team Pachedu know that Zanu PF is rigging these elections and they also know that Nelson Chamisa and company are determined to participate in these elections regardless hence the reason why Team Pachedu have questioned ZEC’s refusal to produce verified voters’ roll but will not question CCC’s folly in insisting in participating in the flawed elections.-SOURCE: zsdemocrats.blogspot.com