EDITORIAL COMMENT: MDC-T’s wild poll claims self-defeating

Zimbabwe Electoral Commission Chair Justice Rita Makarau has tried as much as possible to be transparent and accommodating of some of the most egregious demands by the opposition.

She has tried to get them involved even in processes not directly required of ZEC in the national Constitution. Unfortunately, all that effort has been thankless. If anything, ZEC is getting brickbats for its pains.

Yesterday one of the lickspittle daily newspapers carried on its front page a story claiming to “expose” the advance rigging of the 2018 general elections by the ruling Zanu-PF party. The claims of vote-rigging were attributed to the clueless main opposition, the MDC-T led by perennial loser Morgan Tsvangirai.

Tsvangirai’s party is among many, including civil society groups, which have been invited by ZEC to observe the testing of biometric voter registration kits. This, as we have indicated, was all done in the interest of transparency and to allay MDC-T generated suspicions of vote-rigging.

But that process has been twisted by rotten minds in the MDC-T into an opportunity to display both its malice and ill-will towards Zimbabwe and criminal lack of understanding of a transparent national electoral process.

Perhaps they are too preoccupied with rigging to know what a server is used for. They claimed the rigging of the elections would be carried out through “computer servers”.

“Nobody has indicated how and from whom the servers for this computerised system (BVR kits) will be purchased,” a shadowy source of the party remarked. Another claimed “data from the field (presumably during registration) will be transported on flash discs to district offices, maybe then to provincial offices before the national command centre receives such information.

It is here that we think it (data) will be tampered with. Either the flash discs can be switched or the servers would have been pre-loaded in advance with information from Zanu-PF and the Central Intelligence Organisation.”

If not for their grave insinuation and implications, we would not dignify these foolish “exposures”. They deserve nothing short of contempt. They are disgusting even for the minds of kindergarten kids. What worries us is that Zimbabwe doesn’t seem to have laws penalising the deliberate causing of national alarm and despondency to voters by political parties. This is irresponsible abuse of freedom of expression.

There is a deliberate effort to besmirch and discredit all national processes as a way of inviting foreign intervention, the same way the opposition party called for the imposition of sanctions on our country. We certainly need a law to deal with what would be treated as treasonous in other countries. Our democracy is being abused without consequences.

To start with, much national information is always kept in servers. That is where all our personal information is kept. The MDC-T has never asked where and who supplied the servers for all the national data.

What is so special about voter registration data? ZEC has explained that BVR kits will not be used on polling day. People will vote in the usual way, with the normal verification processes. But now they make ridiculous claims that after voting, there will be tampering with the ballot sheets.

Obviously these claims are based on the mistaken delusions that Zanu-PF doesn’t have supporters. What is lost on these perennial losers is that the foreigners whose opinion they depend so much on don’t vote.

More over elections are not won on social media. Zanu-PF wins elections because it relies on people on the ground, and its pro-poor policies.

It is the poor who vote for Zanu-PF because the party talks to their daily struggles while the clueless opposition gallivants in urban areas holding seminars and consultations with their European Union and American funders.

Fortunately Zimbabweans now know who their enemies are: those opposed to the empowerment of the African people.

MDC-T spokesman Obert Gutu said they were watching and would make sure there was no rigging. But this is too late. Why should their supporters register to vote when they are being told their effort counts for nothing? It’s called shooting oneself in the foot.

The opposition is headed for a serious walloping, hence the attempt to build flimsy alibis around vote-rigging by Zanu-PF.

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