IS IT TOO LATE TO RE-PRINT THE BALLOT PAPER AS
CHIGUMBA SAYS?
This is a good question but before answering it answer this question first: what would reprinting all the ballot paper afresh accomplish when there are still the really thorny issues such have no clean and verified voters' roll, no free public media, Zanu PF have unfettered access to billions of dollars of looted public resources to bankroll it vote rigging and vote buying schemes, etc.?
These elections are not free, fair and credible because the raft of democratic reforms that should have been implement before the elections were not implemented.
Is having new ballot papers going to cure all the other ills of these elections? The answer is no it will not!
These opposition politicians who are demanding the printing of new ballot papers must tell us before we do this: will this make the elections free, fair and credible? Not even one of them will dare say yes because they know they will be lying and they will be shot down for saying it!
We want free, fair and credible elections and these elections are NOT free, fair and credible. We should stop wasting time, energy and treasure on appearances, gimmicks and trivial matters.
This is a good question but before answering it answer this question first: what would reprinting all the ballot paper afresh accomplish when there are still the really thorny issues such have no clean and verified voters' roll, no free public media, Zanu PF have unfettered access to billions of dollars of looted public resources to bankroll it vote rigging and vote buying schemes, etc.?
These elections are not free, fair and credible because the raft of democratic reforms that should have been implement before the elections were not implemented.
Is having new ballot papers going to cure all the other ills of these elections? The answer is no it will not!
These opposition politicians who are demanding the printing of new ballot papers must tell us before we do this: will this make the elections free, fair and credible? Not even one of them will dare say yes because they know they will be lying and they will be shot down for saying it!
We want free, fair and credible elections and these elections are NOT free, fair and credible. We should stop wasting time, energy and treasure on appearances, gimmicks and trivial matters.
If Mr Chamisa and his MDC friends believe that
having reprinted ballots will be enough to make these flawed and illegal
elections free and fair elections; that is up to them. We know to have free,
fair and credible elections takes a lot more than having a ballot paper with
names in alphabetic order in one column! And after 38 years of rigged elections
we, the people of Zimbabwe, are demand free, fair and credible elections and
will not settle for anything less.
President Mnangagwa and his junta promised to
hold free, fair and credible elections it is now abundantly clear the regime
has failed to honour its promise. ZEC has failed to produce something as basic
as a clean and verified voters’ roll! These elections cannot be judged free,
fair and credible but rather declared null and void.
President Mnangagwa and his regime will be asked
to step aside to allow the appointment of an interim administration tasked to
implement the raft of democratic reforms agreed at the onset of the 2008 GNU
and then hold the country’s first free, fair and credible elections. The people
of Zimbabwe have waited for 38 years for this and it is unacceptable to ask
them to wait another day longer!
Those calling for the reprinting of the ballot paper are only concerned about the here and now and are ignoring the bigger picture. If Zanu PF is using the ballot papers to rig these elections, I would not rule anything out given the regime's reputation; what is clear is that this is certainly not the only way the regime is rigging these elections. The failure to produce a clean and verified voters' roll will throw the door wide open to all manner of NIKUV inspired vote rigging schemes as we know happened in 2013.
ReplyDeleteSo getting new ballots printed will not stop Zanu PF rigging these elections. What is the point of soaking a skunk with bottles of Channel 5 when you will know this is a skunk the minute it lifts its tail!