Zimbabwe: Electoral Supervisory Commission and the new Electoral Legislation (continued)
Contacted for comments on the new law, the Registrar-General's office said they have no problems with it. "We have always had an empowering regulation and modification prior to every election in Zimbabwe. It is not new; it is simply updating the regulation. Its procedural," said Mr Batani, the assistant Registrar-General.
The President together with his cabinet made the amendment in the absence of a parliament, which was dissolved on April 11 in preparation for the elections.
The ESC's power to shepherd the electoral process has been effectively reduced since the start of the year. During the referendum held in February, the office faced serious transport and financial problems. They only received transport and money to ferry and pay monitors just two days before the plebiscite. That gave the body a mere 48 hours to get all their monitors in place throughout the country.
Independent observers say much of the weaknesses of educational and informative material on issues relating to the elections is in part a consequence of the weakness of the Electoral Supervisory Commission. The Registrar General has failed to deliver a copy of the voters' roll to the ESC, although he is legally required to do so.
Opposition political parties and pre-election observer mission have expressed doubt on the ability of ESC to supervise the election effectively. The privately run 'The Daily News' article, "ESC hamstrung: parties" (29 May) quoted various officials in the story "ESC says it has no money to run elections", The Financial Gazette (1 June) reported that the ESC would be obliged to depend on whatever handouts the government and donors would give it. The paper also reported that the commission only had three, instead of the mandated five commissioners, making it impossible to fulfil its duties in the electoral process.
The acting chairperson, Elaine Raftopoulos said the financial problems impinged on the organization's freedom and operations. "That is why we have always said that it is imperative to have a truly independent ESC with a separate budget of its own to run elections," says Mrs Raftopoulos. The ESC has an annual budget of 200 000 Zimbabwe Dollars.
The ESC was unable to supervise the voter registration exercise, which started and ended in March 2000. Mrs Raftopolous cited that the Electoral Act in place before the recent amendment gave the Registrar-General all the powers to run the exercise, in spite of the constitutional provision that her office is to supervise the registration of voters.
"We were not advised as to when the voter's registration would commence even though the Registrar-General is mandated to do so," she charges. The ESC has only three part-time members following the resignation of Bishop Hatendi, the former chairperson, in February before the referendum. The others are Richard Moyo and Albert Dzvukamanja, who is also known as Chief Bepura.
"Bishop Hatendi resigned because of the very same frustrations we are going through," says Mrs Raftopolous. The ESC will make a public statement against the new legislation only after it has met with its commissioners on Friday, 16 June.
Zimbabwe is the only remaining country within the Southern African Development Community, which does not have an independent electoral supervisory commission. Further, it is the only country in the region, which has the peculiar setup of four different bodies in charge of elections.