By Dudzai Mukondorongwe| People have been campaigning night and day to register to vote. Many are praying night and day that the 2023 election will be a fair one. Many are hoping that life will improve after the election. What’s worrying, is that all these hopes will be in the hands of an organisational called ZEC that manages elections in Zimbabwe. On paper, the role of ZEC is to make sure that democracy prevails and that every Zimbabwean who registered to vote is given the chance to do so, free from threats and that all votes are counted and a winner by majority is answered.

In reality, ZEC has been a hindrance against free and fair elections. If Zimbabwe was a democracy, ZEC by now would have been disbanded. We are about a year away from the 2023 election, but we don’t need to wait that long to see that ZEC already don’t know or want to do their job properly.

It has been reported the ZEC will not allow an independent audit of the voters roll. That in itself shows that they are not motivated to fight against electoral fraud, in fact not allowing an independence audit is an indication that there are shenanigans happening with the voters roll. If ZEC were doing their job, they would be vocal about the violence against CCC people by Zanu supporters. If ZEC cared about democracy, they would protect people in the rural areas who are being threatened with violence and poverty if they don’t vote Zanu. There is more. A free and fair election is not just about the voting and vote counting. It’s also about ensuring that the state media is giving space to other political parties to put their case to the public who after all pay for the national broadcaster. One of the obvious signs that the ZEC does not care about democracy is that they have never forced ZBC to give the main opposition party fair representation on the radio and on TV.  Fair representation in the media is an indicator of the fairness of a general election.  

If ZEC are incompetent or unbothered by bias before vote casting, what stops them from having the same corrupted approach during the counting of the votes. If ZEC don’t want an independent audit of the voters roll, what are they hiding? Between now and the 2023 election, more scrutiny needs to be cast on the ZEC. The Zimbabwean people deserve to know who these people are, what they are doing to prepare for the election, and continue to expose all the corruption.