Maravi

ECZ's dangerous inefficiency

ECZ's dangerous inefficiency
By The Post
Wed 21 Sep. 2011, 15:20 CAT

THE organisation and conduct of these elections has revealed a very dangerous levels of incompetence, inefficiency, ineffectiveness and disorderliness. It is very dangerous to run elections that are poorly managed and coordinated, especially in today's political atmosphere that is characterised by high suspicions of rigging and other electoral malpractices or fraud.

These are probably the most highly watched, guarded and followed elections in the history of our country. Many people are very alert and vigilant and are analysing and trying to interpret every happening, every phenomenon. They are suspicious of everything that goes outside the norm, the programme.

Our people were told by the Electoral Commission of Zambia that voting at polling stations would start at 06:00 hours and end at 18:00 hours. But many polling stations opened late yesterday, opened many hours later.

Voters were at some polling stations as early as 03:00 hours but could not vote many hours after 06:00 hours. This made some of them suspicious that this might be a ploy to rig the election, to frustrate voting in the opposition strongholds, and so on and so forth. Late opening of polling stations may lead to people not voting if voting stops at 18:00 hours.

If it is extended, the voting may be done in the night and consequently delay the counting and the declaration of results at the polling stations and the final announcement of the winners.

And we have a situation in Lukulu West, where voting at some polling stations could not be done yesterday, and can only take place today. This is a recipe for trouble, for anarchy in a political atmosphere that is highly charged with suspicions or fears of rigging.

In Kanyama, a man was found with unauthorised ballot papers in his possession. We are also told people have been found with unauthorised ballot papers in other parts of the country.

How was this possible? Given the low level of honesty and integrity on the part of Universal Print Group, the printers of our ballot papers, it cannot be easy to convince our people that these ballot papers were not part of a rigging scheme.

Again, this is a recipe for conflict because these results may be difficult for the losers to accept.

It is difficult to accept results of an election where there are many ballot papers that are flying around and cannot be accounted for.

In some polling stations, ballot boxes were delivered without lids or covers. How are these going to be used without risking manipulation? It is very easy for one to empty ballot papers into a ballot box that has no lid.

Many people may start wondering whether this was accidental or was a deliberate ploy to rig elections.

There are some polling stations that were relocated to other places without prior notification to voters who had registered there.

They woke up to go and vote only to find a polling station had been moved. And with already highly-suspicious minds, it is easy for people to believe all these as attempts at rigging.

And in Lusaka, National Registration Cards were being issued on the day of voting, on a holiday without prior announcement to the public. This is a recipe for trouble. Actions of this nature seriously undermine the integrity of the electoral process.

The Electoral Commission of Zambia will have very little public sympathy and understanding because its officers had been very arrogant, intolerant and defensive. They hardly listened to criticism or suggestions of stakeholders other than the MMD.

They only did that which the MMD found desirable or were comfortable with. They had no reason whatsoever to feel conceited and arrogant. We say this because modesty helps one to go forward, whereas conceit makes one lag behind. This is a truth we must always bear in mind.

The commissioners and managers of the Electoral Commission of Zambia have become arrogant and high-handed in their behaviour towards opposition and civil society stakeholders, portraying them as trouble-makers or unreasonable people, without seeing their own shortcomings.

Running elections across a country covering over 755,000 square kilometres of sometimes difficult terrain is not an easy undertaking. It requires the participation of many people. It requires listening attentively to the views of all stakeholders.

If what they say is right, they ought to welcome it, and they should learn from their strong points; if it is wrong, they should let them finish what they are saying and then patiently explain things to them. But this is not the way the Electoral Commission of Zambia has been operating.

Look at the way they turned a blind eye, they turned their backs on the corruption and bribery activities of Universal Print Group and went ahead to use them in the printing of ballot papers without allowing any discussion or some consensus to be reached among all the key stakeholders over this issue.

Today, their arrogance, their lack of humility has caught up with them. They have failed to run efficient and orderly elections. They have no answers or explanations to the issue of ballot papers that were found in the hands of unauthorised people.

We ask them again: what have you to say about these ballot papers that have been flying around? How are you going to assure the Zambian people that you have run an honest election whose results are accurate or correct and as such should be accepted by all?

Clearly, the organisation and conduct of these elections is below the standards expected by our people. It might have been possible in past elections for the Electoral Commission of Zambia to get away with such high levels of inefficiency and disorderliness but it may not be that easy for them to do so in these elections because the Zambian people have become extremely vigilant - and rightly so - and will not accept anything that may lead to rigging or some other electoral fraud or manipulation.

The only chance remaining for the Electoral Commission of Zambia to redeem themselves is in the counting and tallying of votes.

These will also be highly monitored. There will be very high levels of vigilance on this score. And any one misstep by the Electoral Commission of Zambia, they are gone, we are gone, we are in trouble. This being the case, a lot of care needs to be taken. Counting has to be done in the most transparent way, with everyone who should verify, verifying the counting. The tallying of votes also has to be very accurate.

And here the error margin is zero. Mistakes here may prove disastrous, may spark the undesirable. Therefore, the Electoral Commission of Zambia should not rush into announcing results they have not properly verified.

Any loss or distortion of election results in transmission may also prove disastrous because the Electoral Commission of Zambia are not the only ones who are tallying and transmitting results. There are other players, and if they happen to declare results that don't tie up with those of other players, they are in trouble, we are in trouble.

All these challenges point to the main structural problems of the Electoral Commission of Zambia. The Commission is too dependent on officers from the ministries of local government and home affairs whom they do not control.

Many of these officers are placed there strategically for the purposes of electoral manipulation or fraud. And it's a big challenge to control them. Even the Electoral Commission of Zambia itself is not entirely free from the pressures that are exerted on the Ministry of Local Government by those in power, who want to manipulate the electoral process.

There are officers placed at the Electoral Commission of Zambia for similar purposes by the same appointing authorities. Moreover, it is the same people who appoint both the Electoral Commission of Zambia officers and those from other ministries who participate in organising and conducting elections.

This highly compromises the impartiality, integrity and indeed the efficiency, effectiveness and orderliness of our electoral process. And it is a recipe for conflict.

Labels: 2011 ELECTIONS, ECZ, VOTERIGGING

posted by MrK @ 12:43 AM