Removing leaders without bloodshed

Removing leaders without bloodshed
By The Post
Sat 17 Sep. 2011, 13:55 CAT

We know that it sounds negative but we have always thought it positive to say that the important thing about democracy is that we can remove without bloodshed the people who govern us.

We can get rid of a president, our member of parliament or councillor. But that cannot be done if the electoral process is tampered with, is manipulated or is subject to fraud.

We must ask what will happen when people realise that they are no longer able to remove those who govern them using the ballot box, through elections.

We must ask what will happen when people realise that their electoral system has been manipulated to ensure that those in power cannot be removed through the ballot, can stay in power for as long as they want, regardless of the wishes of the great majority of the people.

If people lose the power to sack their representatives, their government, one of several things happens. First, people may just slope off. Apathy could destroy our nascent or young democracy. The turnout for elections can be very low. And when this happens, we are in danger as a nation.

The lingering danger of voter apathy is not that public offices will go unfilled, but that officeholders will be elected by smaller and smaller percentages of eligible people. A government chosen by a small group is not a democracy - no matter how democratic its internal workings may appear. The voter population must be large enough to include a large proportion of the adult citizens.

The second thing that people can do is to riot. Riot is an old-fashioned method for drawing the attention of the government, of the political leadership to what is wrong. It is difficult for those in power, in leadership to admit, but riots have helped to change laws and political practices. They have brought about reforms, political or otherwise. They have collapsed or removed governments. We have recently seen what riots can do in Ivory Coast, Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Syria and so on and so forth.

Riot has historically played a much larger part in politics than we are ever allowed to know or admit.

Third, nationalism can arise. Nationalism is built out of frustration that people feel when they cannot get their way through the ballot box. With nationalism comes repression.

We hope that it is not pessimistic - in our view it is not - to say that democracy hangs by a thread in our country today. Unless we can offer our people a peaceful route to the resolution of injustices, of political differences or preferences through the ballot box in honest, transparent, free, fair and peaceful elections, they will not listen to politicians or other leaders who have blocked off that route.

The results of next Tuesday's elections will be meaningless, will not be accepted by all our people unless we arrange things in such a way as to give every candidate or contestant who can win an opportunity to win.

This can only be guaranteed by organising and conducting our elections in a manner that makes rigging or electoral fraud impossible or easy to detect and correct if it occurs. People's confidence in our electoral process needs to be increased to an acceptable level for them to accept the results of Tuesday's elections as truly reflecting their will.

We have serious challenges with next Tuesday's elections. Our people's confidence in the electoral process of their country appears to be at its lowest. They are suspicious about everything. They seem to think and believe that those in power want to rig this election and have put in place a mechanism to do so. However, the people seem to be determined to stop it, to frustrate any rigging attempts.

We saw what happened in Mongu the other day: a plane was searched on suspicion of carrying ballot papers to be used in rigging; trucks for a contractor were searched on suspicions that they were carrying ballot papers to be used in electoral fraud. The other week, a truck was stopped and searched at Nakonde on suspicion that it was carrying ballot papers to be used in rigging elections.

This is how far things have gone. This is how bad the situation has gotten to. This is how deep our people's suspicions about rigging are. Can all this just be ignored or trivialised as unfounded? As we have stated before, there is a reason, there is a basis for all these growing suspicions of election rigging, of electoral fraud. There is a reason or basis for this vigilance, for this alertness. It is a suspicion and vigilance born out of experience, out of necessity and out of a burning desire for justice, fairness and honesty in the way we organise and conduct our elections.

If we had conducted our elections in an honest, transparent, free and fair way, these suspicions and the vigilance accompanying them wouldn't be there. There is reasonable evidence from past elections showing signs of electoral fraud and other malpractices. And in light of this experience, it would be foolish and irresponsible for our people to sit idle and believe that all is well in the conduct of our elections.

All is not well in the organisation and conduct of our elections. There is a lot of room for fraud, unfairness and injustice. Our people are right in thinking that if they are not vigilant, their votes will be stolen. This is why we have for the first time such a big number of observers, foreign and local, trying to guard against fraud and all other sorts of cheating.

This is why many people, except those in the MMD, wanted parallel vote tabulation to be used in the verification of results to ensure their accuracy. All this simply goes to show that there is generally a strong belief that if not well monitored, not well policed, not well guarded, the results of next Tuesday's elections could be manipulated in favour of Rupiah Banda and the MMD. Hence the suspicions of rigging. Hence the vigilance to ensure that no rigging takes place.

This is the most appropriate response to all this. The Electoral Commission of Zambia has failed to organise and conduct elections in which our people have confidence. Our people have no confidence in the integrity, impartiality and honesty of the Electoral Commission of Zambia. And because of this, they are taking it upon themselves to guard against rigging.

And today they are issuing all sorts of threats against those they will find engaging in rigging, in electoral fraud. They are threatening to burn them alive, to necklace them. This can be avoided. It would be sad for any of our people to lose their lives simply because they were found with ballot papers, pre-marked or otherwise, they could not properly explain.

We therefore appeal to all our people, even those who have already been hired to engage in rigging activities, to stay away from anything that can be seen as an attempt to cheat, to defraud the Zambian voters. You have been warned! You will have yourself to blame if you are caught.

As for the rest of our people, we urge you to remain vigilant, to expose any attempt to rig next Tuesday's elections. Expose electoral fraud, cheating wherever you see or suspect it. Remain ever vigilant, ever alert to any attempt of rigging, of stealing your votes. Don't rush home after voting.

If you can, stay at the polling station and guard it until the last vote is counted and signed for or announced. If you rush home and go and sleep, you will wake up the following day to find that your votes have been stolen. Stay there and search anyone coming with suspicious parcels or bags.

For those who have volunteered and have been accredited as observers, take your responsibilities very seriously. Ensure that no one, regardless of their position at the Electoral Commission of Zambia or in the state security and intelligence agencies or the police is allowed to introduce any unauthorised ballot papers in the system or tamper with the tallies of the votes. Don't go to sleep, stay awake and vigilant all the time.

Ensure that there are no fictitious streams introduced at your polling station; ensure that there are no fictitious polling stations in your constituencies. Ensure that no one comes to empty ballot boxes for counting from somewhere else. This requires more and more vigilance, alertness.

This is the only way to stop rigging. If anyone is caught, don't let them go scot-free. Let them meet the temerity of their actions, let them pay the penance required by their dishonesty whatever that may be.