OVER the weekend, there were by-elections in nine constituencies.
The by-elections were instigated by Sengezo Tshabangu, a self-styled political weasel who dubiously crawled out of the country’s main opposition woodworks like the proverbial night-creeping thief to steal the people’s votes in what has become one of the world’s brazen examples of daylight electoral fraud.
The lone political wolf jaw-droppingly and insolently thumbed his nose at millions of voters’ universal suffrage by recalling over a dozen parliamentary and local authority officials the voters had elected during the August 23 and 24 harmonised elections. The man singularly decided to disrespect the voters’ wishes and curiously, the ruling Zanu PF party gleefully grabbed the opportunity and is celebrating having nicked seven seats in the by-elections.
But, if truth be told, there is absolutely no pride in winning anything in this flawed and sham process which was highlighted by a massive boycott which saw 80% of the registered voters staying at home in protest over the entire Tshabangu-birthed debacle.
There is no pride in partaking in such an undemocratic process which involves barely half of the registered voters who should ideally give anyone, including the President, the mandate to lead.
So, indeed, there is no pride in celebrating a victory gifted by a minority of voters who hardly represent the aspiration of the greater majority.
There is no pride in salivating over a win birthed by voter apathy, which is one of the biggest threats to democracy as the Zimbabwe Election Support Network (Zesn) rightly pointed out in one of the articles in yesterday’s NewsDay edition.
Zesn said: “Recalls affect democratic essence and this has been evidenced by the decreasing numbers in voter turnout in by-elections held so far since the 2023 harmonised elections.
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“Whereas Section 67 of the Constitution states that ‘every Zimbabwean has the right to vote’, there seems to be fewer uptakes on exercising this constitutional right to elect leaders by eligible voters in Zimbabwe during by-elections.
“The power to recall, if any, must reside in the people and not political parties as is the trend in the majority of democracies.”
This buttresses our strong view that there is no pride in Zimbabwe, a purported democracy, partaking in such an embarrassing electoral process as the one we witnessed on December 9.
For those who are celebrating the victory, they would rather do it quietly. How can the candidate for Bulawayo South be jumping in joy after only 12% of the registered constituency voters voted in the weekend polls?
A further detailed analysis of the weekend by-elections figures will reveal, for example, that the newly elected Bulawayo South legislator, Zanu PF’s Rajesh Kumar Modi, was chosen by 6,7% of the constituency’s 24 024 registered voters after a paltry 1 608 voted for him. The other 5,3% of those who chose to participate in the sham polls did not vote for him.
All those who won the weekend by-elections should not celebrate such a pyrrhic victory because they will be leading disgruntled people who may even snub all their programmes.
