"We reiterate, Chamisa was the winner of 2018 election" - just obdurate and obstructive stupidity N Garikai

“It is now a year since Zimbabweans voted in the last harmonized elections on 30th July 2018,” read the MDC statement.

“We reiterate that the results of the Presidential election as announced by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) and as endorsed by the Constitutional Court; were not a true reflection of the will of the people. We further maintain that according to our computation, our candidate Advocate Nelson Chamisa emerged as a clear winner in the contest.”

The country, indeed the whole world at large, considers this as yet another example of MDC obdurate and obstructive stupidity.

The Americans, the Commonwealth, EU and many other international nations and organisation have all dismissed last year’s elections as farce and a mockery to all that democratic elections should be.

“The (Zimbabwe) electoral commission lacked full independence and appeared to not always act in an impartial manner,” stated the EU Zimbabwe Election Observer Mission final report.

“The final results as announced by the Electoral Commission contained numerous errors and lacked adequate traceability, transparency and verifiability. Finally, the restrictions on political freedoms, the excessive use of force by security forces and abuses of human rights in the post-election period undermined the corresponding positive aspects during the pre-election campaign. As such, many aspects of the 2018 elections in Zimbabwe failed to meet international standards.”

The EU and anyone else of note never considered MDC’s claim that Nelson Chamisa won the presidential race for two basic reasons:

a)     The whole election process was full of flaws and illegalities; ZEC failed to produce something as basic and fundamental to democratic elections as a verified voters’ roll, for example. It is a mystery that anyone with any common sense even agreed to participate in such elections when it was clear Zanu PF would rig the elections. The whole election process was not free, fair and credible and so all the results were null and void. Why MDC chose to accept the election process as valid and only to reject some selected results including the presidential race results is beggars belief.

b)     Even if one was to accept whatever twisted logic MDC used to justify overlooking all the flaws and illegalities in the election process, still no one could ever accept MDC’s claim that Chamisa polled more votes than Mnangagwa. Both Chamisa and ZEC for Mnangagwa failed to produce all the V11 forms, a summary of each candidate’s vote count by polling stations. About 10% of the V11 forms were never made public although this is a legal requirement just as producing a verified voters’ roll was a legal requirement. Of course, it is nonsensical for anyone to accept Chamisa’s or ZEC’s figure when one cannot verify or trace any of the figures.  

Anyone familiar with Zimbabwe’s checked political history was not at all surprised that MDC and the rest in the Zimbabwe opposition camp participated in last year’s elections even though ZEC had failed to produce something as basic as verified voters’ roll and all knew Zanu PF would rig the elections. The opposition candidates also knew that Zanu PF would be giving away a few gravy train seats as bait. It was these seats the opposition were after.

“The worst aspect for me about the failure to agree a coalition was that both MDCs couldn’t now do the obvious – withdraw from the (2013) elections,” admitted MDC Senator David Coltart in his book.

“The electoral process was so flawed, so illegal, that the only logical step was to withdraw, which would compel SADC to hold Zanu PF to account. But such was the distrust between the MDC-T and MDC-N that neither could withdraw for fear that the other would remain in the elections, winning seats and giving the process credibility.”

Four of the main MDC factions did form a coalition just before the 2018 elections and still they participated knowing fully well that Zanu PF would rig the elections for the same reason as before – greed for the scrap gravy train seats on offer.

The only reason MDC has decided to accept the election process as free, fair and credible but reject the presidential result is to take advantage of the fact that everyone else of note dismissed the election as a farce. MDC is offering Mnangagwa “legitimacy” in return for cabinet positions for Chamisa and one or two other MDC leaders.

Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF party are illegitimate because last year’s election process was flawed and illegal and therefore could not produce a legitimate winner. With no legitimate government Zimbabwe will then be compelled to appoint an interim administration whose primary task would be to implement the necessary democratic reforms to stop this curse of rigged elections.

But by participating in the flawed and illegal elections and then MDC bargaining legitimacy for a share of the spoils of the rigged elections, the opposition has given Zanu PF some modicum of political credibility. This has undermined those demanding that Zanu PF must step down on the grounds the regime is illegitimate. This is why MDC’s contradictory claim to have won presidential race is not just stupid but worse still an obstruction to the pressing matter of implementing the reforms and ending the curse of rigged elections.