" 110 - (3) Where two or more candidates for President are nominated, and after a poll taken in terms of subsection (2) no candidate receives a majority of the total number of valid votes cast, a second election shall be held within twenty-one days after the previous election in accordance with this Act. "
Tsvangirai 'unaware' of run-off clause
17/10/2011 00:00:00
by Staff Reporter
MORGAN Tsvangirai was ready to step in as President and drew up a team of his ministers after the March 28, 2008, election because he was unaware of a 2004 Electoral Act amendment requiring the winning candidate to obtain at least 50+ percent of the total vote.
The MDC-T leader won the first round with 47,9 percent, trailed by the incumbent President Robert Mugabe who polled 43,2 percent and Simba Makoni who was a distant third with 8,3 percent. Tsvangirai's numbers fell below the threshold necessary to form a government.
Election results were not announced until May 2, and during the delays, Tsvangirai says his party was sure he had outpolled his rivals.
“I started to prepare an alternative administration,” Tsvangirai reveals in his recently published memoirs, ‘At the Deep End’. “I had a transitional team devising a transitional mechanism and suggesting various departments and ministries. All that was left were firm appointments and taking over the government.”
But Tsvangirai says he soon sensed a change of mood in the defeated Zanu PF, and his fears were confirmed when South African president Thabo Mbeki announced “there was going to be a run-off in the presidential election long before the results were announced”.
He adds: “I wondered where their information was coming from. Mugabe soon joined the run-off chorus. How did he know, when ZEC [Zimbabwe Electoral Commission] was still holding on to the official results? How did Mbeki know? What was this run-off business all about?
“I was unaware that the law had been changed to deny a winner without 50 percent plus one vote to take over government. It must have slipped my mind at the time when it went through parliament. I did not know that in such an event, a run-off would be needed between the two leading candidates.”
Tsvangirai’s admission that he was ignorant of provisions of the Electoral Act will surprise some of his supporters.
The provision was introduced into the Electoral Act in 2004 as part of a raft of amendments ahead of the 2005 parliamentary elections. It sailed through parliament without opposition from MDC MPs.
A presidential run-off was called for June 27 of the same year but Tsvangirai pulled out after Mugabe’s supporters, he claims with the backing of the military, swept the countryside in a reign of terror which left over 200 MDC supporters dead.
Tsvangirai became Prime Minister in a unity government formed in February 2009 after pressure from regional leaders. Mugabe stayed on as President.
The Prime Minister's memoirs, 'At the Deep End', are published by Penguin Books in South Africa.
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Here is the relevant part of the Electoral Act of 2004:
CHAPTER 2:13
ELECTORAL ACT
Act 25/2004
The run-off principle is spelled out in 110 (3).
110 Determination and declaration of result of election to office of President
(1) Where only one candidate for President is validly nominated at the close of the day on which a nomination court sits in terms of paragraph (a) of subsection (1) of section one hundred and three, the Chief Elections Officer shall declare such candidate to be duly elected as President without the necessity of a poll.
(2) Where two or more candidates for President are validly nominated, a poll shall be taken in each constituency for the election of a President.
(3) Where two or more candidates for President are nominated, and after a poll taken in terms of subsection (2) no candidate receives a majority of the total number of valid votes cast, a second election shall be held within twenty-one days after the previous election in accordance with this Act.
(4) In a second election held in terms of subsection (3) only the two candidates who received the highest and next highest numbers of valid votes cast at the previous election shall be eligible to contest the election.
(5) If, after a second election held in terms of subsection (3), the two candidates referred to in subsection (4), receive an equal number of votes, Parliament shall, as soon as practicable after the declaration of the result of that election, meet as an electoral college and elect one of the two candidates as President by secret ballot and without prior debate.
Also interesting, because the NGOs/UK/US governments always like to talk about 'Mugabe's elections', and other spin.
http://www.kubatana.net/docs/legisl/elecact050121.pdf
102 When election to office of President to be held
(1) Pursuant to subsection (3) of section 28 of the Constitution, an election to the office of President shall be held within ninety days—
(a) before the term of office of the President expires in terms of section 29 of the
Constitution; or
(b) after the office of President becomes vacant by reason of his or her death or resignation or removal from office in terms of the Constitution.
(2) In an election to the office of President, every registered voter shall be entitled to vote.
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