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She spoke with resoluteness and the confidence of someone who knows what they are doing. There was no room for prevarication. Everyone has their mandate.We refer here to Justice Rita Makarau telling political parties to stay out of the operational ambit of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC).

Justice Makarau spoke as ZEC was meeting representatives of political parties in Harare to appraise them on a mapping exercise the electoral body is carrying out to determine which voters in a particular ward will vote at which polling station according to their given household physical address. This follows a decision, influenced by political parties, that voting in future should be polling station-based.

Now political parties have demanded that they be involved in the ongoing mapping exercise. Besides not having such a mandate, it is not self-evident at this stage what the political parties hope to achieve by this meddling. Recently the MDC-T went to the extent of demanding that it be involved in the procurement of ballot papers and related materials.

This time around they found the judge in an uncompromising mood. Meddling by political parties would not be tolerated. “We execute our operations independently of any political party or any other State agency,” Justice Makarau warned on Monday.

“Yes, they can come and look over our shoulders as we are working in some particular areas but when it comes to making decisions and designing programmes, ZEC is going to do so independently without interference from anyone. When we engage you (political parties), it is out of goodwill otherwise where we have a constitutional mandate, we will simply say take it or leave it.”

Justice Makarau said political parties had no mandate to be involved in the polling station mapping exercise and allowing them to poke their nose beyond making comments on how the process could be improved would be a breach of the law.

Thank you, Justice Makarau for laying down the law.

We believe political parties and civic society organisations would be playing a more fruitful and legitimate role if they focused their attention on getting people to register ahead of the vote. It would also be more productive rather to educate potential voters about what polling station-based voting entails and the requirements on polling day instead of seeking to hand-hold ZEC in executing its constitutional mandate.

It is regrettable that over the past nearly two decades ever since the entry into mainstream politics of a foreign-sponsored opposition Zimbabwe has never known peace as far as elections go. It has been their main focus to discredit every national institution with a role in elections, and even beyond, such as the army and other security agencies.

Not that the MDC-T and other political parties should not assert their rights. Rather, it is the crybaby mentality where the word rigging and electoral reform have become clichés and a crude euphemism for their losses. In every national constituency where they win, they celebrate. Where they lose, the vote has been rigged.

All this, particularly for the MDC-T, stemming from a misplaced myth that they are the biggest party in the country and therefore can’t lose elections. These claims notwithstanding that the party has never conceived a sellable national programme besides trying to capitalise on a protest vote where Zanu-PF has failed to meet its electoral promises.

Over the past few years ZEC and its chairpersons have been the target of opposition calumny for reportedly helping Zanu-PF and President Mugabe win elections. And now they want to tell the world the best way to stop Zanu-PF winning future elections is for them to pinpoint every spot where a polling booth should be sited, and which households qualify to vote at what polling station.

Political parties must craft programmes which are sellable to potential voters rather than spend time trying to impugn electoral systems just to please their sponsors.

Thank you once again Justice Makarau for reading them the law. Political parties must be out in the field.