May, 2005

Who Says Elections Are Fair? ………….The Zimbabwe Case
By Readith Mwila Muliyunda,

ATLAST! Zimbabwe’s Parliamentary elections are over. But in an election that saw Mugabe’s ruling ZANU Patriotic Front (PF) carry the day and as is in any other election here or there, there was no absence of dissatisfied camps of the opposition and its supporters.
Observers from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) mission comprising 14 countries in Southern Africa plus the African Union (AU) mission have both declared the elections transparent and free and fair. But opposition Movement For Democratic Change (MDC) with the party’s British and American allies have cried foul citing fraud and rigging.
There has since been a tag of war of words between those declaring the elections free and those opposing such declarations and the outcome. The question is “ were the Zimbabwe elections truly free and fair?” But then to answer this question is to ask ourselves another questions “has there ever been a free and fair election anywhere on this planet?”
A lot of us have come to learn that the so called democratic or free elections have proved to be an illusion. It is far-fetched, or is merely relative and far from being “fair”.
A lot of flaws and unfairness have been detected and cristicised even in elections held by the ‘mother’ and ‘architect’ of democracy- the U.S, which has on two consecutive occasions seen ‘transparent’ elections produce the least popular candidate “George Bush”.
Now wait a minute how did George win when during the run-up to the elections popular polls showed he lacked enough support to enable him win? Did opposition candidate, John Kerry and his supporters think it was fair that Bush became president?
Who condemned Bush for clinging on to power when Americans and the rset of the world did not want him? Well! What can we do?- that is democracy for you. Like it or not transparency is not as transparent and there still has to be a winner and a loser, even by one vote, which ever way it goes.
But we all don’t want to lose, do we? That is why for Morgan Tsvangirai and his friend Tony Blair (and all Blair’s friends), the elections could only have been free and fair if Mugabe’s ZANU PF had lost. No one can really blame them for feeling like that because nobody likes to lose anyways.
However, it is important for Tsvangirai to see how his friend Tony contributed big time to his downfall.
Let’s face it, the duo’s alliance in the just ended elections were as clear as daylight and there is high possibility that this cost Tsvangirai some votes-in fact a lot of votes, leading to Mugabe’s landslide victory.
When Zimbabweans saw Tsvangirai, they saw Tony Blair. This was even consolidated by Mugabe’s emphasis in his countrywide campaigns that what they were seeing was really true.
The situation left them with no other choice, but to go with the devil they know than pick the angel that reflected the merciless devil they once knew.
People could see that Tsvangirai was not being his own man, he was under the shadow of Blair, who has been infuriated by Mugabe’s policy which drove away white farmers off the land they acquired during the country’s British colonial rule. It is also a known fact that Blair cares less about the ordinary Black Zimbabweans, his fuss is only about the plight of the white British farmers.
So when most Zimbabweans (especially the old that were there in those times and understood the wrath of colonial rule) saw Tsivingirai, they saw Blair who reminded them of the Ian Smith racist colonial regime. They also heard neo-colonialism tapping on their doorstep.
Who in his or her right mind would want to return to Smith’s white racist minority rule, or if they had a choice, willingly embrace neo-colonialism? For this reason, Tsvangirai could have done well to stay away from Blair and work hard to prove to Zimbabweans that he was his own man who had the interests of the Zimbabweans at heart.
By aligning himself with the Blairs of this world, Tsivangirai basically cancelled himself out and delivered the votes in Mugabe’s hands-he only has himself to blame. Standing on a podium, it was interesting to see how Tsivangarai’s position drew his support, only from outside Africa and none from within the continent.
It was also interesting to observe the behaviour of the western media once again, which had closely followed the white land events in Zimbabwe with enthausiasm.
The extra-ordinary silence exhibited by the western media during the run-up and at the time of the elections was not surprising. It was due to the fact that the situation in the Southern African country was exceptionally peaceful that even when their favourite canadidate Tsivangirai publicly commended the situation, he was totally ignored.
Scanning the western media for the Zimbabwe articles gave one an impression that Zimbabwe had ceased to exist or as someone put it “ it was as if Zimbabwe had moved to another planet”. Zimbabwe only re-surfaced in the media when it was time for Britain, U.S, Germany and Australia, who were ‘observers’ from a distance, to declare the elections a “sham”.
African observers’ voices were totally left out and their observations remained confined to the African media. Why? Because what those Africans had to say about the elections was not according to the pattern that the western media has set regarding that country’s coverage or rather it was not their kind of news. This is regardless of the fact that they were the ones on the ground. Probably nobody in this part of the world (the West) even knows that Africa had its own monitors from around the continent who were in Zimbabwe to witness the elections.
Whether, their observations were right or wrong was not for the western media to decide. It should atleast have been able to provide balanced coverage for the respect of journalistic ethics and principles. What happened to real journalism? But we cannot go back on that issue because there is urgent need for Zimbabweans to move forward. It is now time for all sides (Mr Tony Blair and Mr Robert Mugabe) and the whole international community to recognize this and bury their hatchets for the sake of the ordinary people in Zimbabwe.
Remember how we all decided together with the American people that we would accept the illegitimate leadership of Mr Bush (no matter how much it hurts), and make the best of it, instead of crying over spilt milk? No mercenaries please! Africa has had enough wars and needs a break. We all know that a lot of money was pumped in from both sides, to try and sway Zimbabweans’ to vote otherwise. But things do not always work the way you would like them to.
It is nice to see the Mr Mugabe has led the way by extending an olive branch to the opposition in the hope of mending relationships and working together for the good of the country. He has also gone another mile, pledging to compensate the white farmers that were affected in the land resettlement, although the white farmers are disappointingly refusing to take the money saying it’s too little.
Britain should also start disbursing money to help fund the exercise as they have also contributed to the problem by going back on their earlier obligation to fund the land re-distribution. Let us see an end to bickering and stop running away from responsibilities. Hopefully, we will see everyone behaving like the adults that they are to contribute to efforts of a stable Zimbabwe.
Ends……________________________________________________________________________