Zimbabwe is months away from its next election, and the battle over how level the playing field is intensifying. At the heart of all the rising tension is the performance of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), and the extent to which it has paid any attention to the reforms proposed by international observer groups and Zimbabwean civil society.
Last year, a frame for understanding elections in Zimbabwe was adopted for looking at the reforms or their absence, and the conclusions first five webinars were deeply disappointing. In particular, the participants and discussants were in unanimity that there were serious problems with the voters’ roll (and access to it), and serious concerns were raised about delimitation. The contrasts with Kenya clearly showed the discrepancy between regional and international best practice and the reality in Zimbabwe.
Today, the voters’ roll is still not accessible, with many impediments placed in the way of an independent audit, and the draft delimitation report has been delivered to the President and thence to Parliament with little evidence of the key requirements for creating confidence that gerrymandering has not taken place. As Staffan Darnolf pointed out in the fourth webinar, delimitation should meet five basic conditions:
1. Impartiality: The boundary authority should be a nonpartisan, independent, and professional body.
2. Equality: The populations of constituencies should be as equal as possible to provide voters with equality of voting strength.
3. Representativeness: Constituencies should be drawn taking into account cohesive communities, defined by such factors as administrative boundaries, geographic features, and communities of interest.
4. Non-discrimination: The delimitation process should be devoid of electoral boundary manipulation that discriminates against voters on account of race, color, language, religion, or related status; and
5. Transparency:
The delimitation process should as transparent and accessible to the public as possible.
It is therefore an appropriate time to revisit these principles, and to see to what extent ZEC has conformed to regional and international best practice in delivering the draft Delimitation report: to what extent will the report meet the requirement for Inclusion, one of the key pillars in ensuring that the citizenry will participate in free and fair elections
This webinar will examine the prospects for an election in which Inclusionr is at all possible, with political violence having already emerged in the recent by-elections and the rising tide of violent rhetoric.
The webinar will bring together an expert panel of international and national experts.
Convener:
Ibbo Mandaza (SAPES Trust)
Moderator:
Pansy Tlakula (Chairperson of the Information Regulator of South Africa)
Keynote Speaker:
Phillan Zamchiya (Senior Researcher, Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies)
Discussants:
Barbra Bhebe (Executive Director, Election Resource Centre)
Veritas