Zimbabweans woke up Wednesday with their dreams of political freedom and economic stability put on hold. Robert Mugabe had clung to power after "re-electing" himself in an election that was spoiled by myriad irregularities.
Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC leader, was a virtual certainty to be the new occupant of the Zimbabwe State House, but Zanu. P.F. snatched from him a much-deserved victory.
Tsvangirai, Mugabe's opponent, has described the elections as "excessively fraudulent and daylight robbery." Tsvangirai is not alone in condemning the recently concluded presidential poll.
Leaders in the United States, Great Britain, the European Union, Australia, Canada and New Zealand have added their voices of condemnation to the Zimbabwean elections. Mugabe is taking comfort from a few African countries like Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Namibia, Mozambique and Malawi, whose representatives have voiced the legitimacy of his re-election.
What is troubling is that these African countries do not have a clean record of conducting free and fair elections themselves.
Many Zimbabweans braved the elements on March 11 and 12, determined that those elections were the only democratic means of getting rid of Mugabe.
Little did they know Mugabe had preordained the election results by disenfranchising fellow citizens through restrictive voter registration in urban areas.
Urban dwellers numbering 360,000 were turned away at polling stations, names were illegally removed from the voters' roll and the registration of dubious voters continued when the registration exercise was concluded in January. Eventually a supplementary voters' roll of 400,000 people was compiled. Mugabe won the election by 426,811 votes.
The most painful disenfranchisement took place in Harare where electoral authorities reduced polling stations by 50 percent to inconvenience MDC supporters. Some urban dwellers spent hours in line waiting to vote while some gave up without voting.
Contrary to a High Court order on Sunday night that had decreed an extension of voting into Monday, government officials running polling stations in Harare and Chitungwiza opened them around midday and closed them at 7 p.m.
Another fraudulent activity that reared its ugly head was the way the postal ballots for the army and the police were handled. These officers were forced to vote before their superiors who made sure they voted for Mugabe and not their conscience.
In addition to mishandling security personnel ballots, millions of Zimbabweans living overseas were denied their right to vote in the recent presidential poll. Security personnel in government were dispatched to polling agencies to run the electoral process ahead of laws that authorized them to do that.
It was a crowning achievement for Mugabe when he overrode the Zimbabwe Supreme Court that had nullified the General Laws Amendment Act to shore up his candidacy. The General Laws Amendment Act banned independent monitors, legalized the engagement of the army in the electoral process and allowed only the Electoral Supervising Commission to supply voter education and denied permanent residents the right to vote.
The chief justice, a Mugabe appointee, reserved judgment on crucial issues the MDC wanted addressed before the election. The last plug government pulled for the MDC was arresting their 1,400 polling agents on their way to the polling stations. It is there Mugabe's agents stuffed ballots to ensure his victory.
The MDC did not have freedom to campaign in most of the rural areas because of violence and intimidation perpetrated by government militias. MDC rallies were canceled by the police who used the Public Order and Security Act that bestowed unbridled powers to them.
Write to Tafadzwa at wmudambanuki@bsu.edu
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