US embassy cable - 02HARARE2193

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 HARARE 002193 
 
SIPDIS 
 
LONDON FOR CGURNEY 
PARIS FOR CNEARY 
NSC FOR SENIOR AFRICAN DIRECTOR JENDAYI FRAZER 
NAIROBI FOR PFLAUMER 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/30/2012 
TAGS: PGOV, PHUM, ASEC, ZI, ZANU-PF 
SUBJECT: ZANU-PF APPEARS HEADED FOR LANDSLIDE VICTORY IN 
LOCAL ELECTIONS 
 
REF: HARARE 2087 
 
Classified By: political section chief Matt Harrington.  Reasons: 1.5 ( 
B) and (D). 
 
Summary 
-------- 
 
1.  (C) Voter turnout was low in Zimbabwe's nationwide rural 
council elections September 28-29, and early returns suggest 
a likely landslide victory by the ruling ZANU-PF, not 
surprising given pre-election violence, intimidation, and 
electoral manipulation.  The GOZ stepped up efforts to 
diminish outside scrutiny of the electoral process, including 
barring most local independent observers and opposition 
representatives from the polling stations.  In addition, 
government officials refused to share any election-related 
information with informal observer teams from Harare-based 
diplomatic missions, including the United States, saying they 
had been instructed not to engage in such discussions. 
Incidents of violence and harassment against MDC supporters 
and officials, including the arrest of an opposition 
parliamentarian, were reported on the voting days. 
Government-procured food assistance is being used for 
political gain by ZANU-PF, while cases of malnutrition among 
children and adults increases dramatically.  End Summary. 
 
General Climate 
--------------- 
 
2.  (C) Three observer teams from Harare-based diplomatic 
missions, including three U.S. diplomats, deployed to hot 
spots, beginning two-three days before the nationwide rural 
council elections held September 28-29.  One team covered the 
province of Manicaland, while the other two travelled to key 
areas in Matabeleland North and South; in total, the teams 
visited approximately a tenth of Zimbabwe's 120 electoral 
constituencies.  Common themes emerged from the experiences 
of all three teams:  food assistance distributed by 
government is regularly manipulated to give political 
advantage to ZANU-PF; cases of malnutrition and related 
infirmities in children and adults have risen dramatically; 
violence and intimidation against MDC supporters continue to 
be problems, although the numbers of incidents have declined 
somewhat since the presidential election; and the ruling 
party has manipulated the rules to tilt the electoral process 
heavily in its favor. 
 
Initial Results 
--------------- 
 
3.  (U) Reftel reported that the opposition Movement for 
Democratic Change (MDC) was unable to field candidates for 
even half of the approximately 1400 seats being contested in 
the rural council elections, due primarily to GOZ-sanctioned 
violence and intimidation and manipulation of the electoral 
rules.  The MDC's effort to delay the elections for those 
seats for which it had been unable to nominate candidates was 
dismissed by a High Court judge on September 27.  Initial 
returns for the 600-some seats that were contested showed 
ZANU-PF winning 72 of 86 by comfortable margins.  The MDC won 
12, all in its stronghold of Matabeleland, although the 
majority of announced seats even in that region were won by 
the ruling party.  Two seats went to independents.  ZANU-PF 
has swept the seats announced so far in Masvingo and 
Mashonaland Central provinces.  The MDC won two seats on the 
city council of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second-largest city, 
changing the ZANU/MDC balance on that council to 16/11, with 
two independents.  We expect final results to be announced 
sometime on October 1 and predict an overwhelming victory by 
the ruling party. 
 
Low turnout 
----------- 
 
4.  (C) On the first day of voting, our teams witnessed 
mostly empty polling stations, where few people appeared to 
be casting ballots.  Rindai Chipfunde, national coordinator 
of the Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) -- a grouping 
of NGOs interested in maintaining the integrity and 
transparency of elections -- confirmed that voter turnout 
nationwide was very low, a phenomenon she attributed 
primarily to a lack of information about the elections. 
Many people, she said, had been unaware that elections were 
being held.  In addition, we suspect that violence and 
intimidation had an effect, as well as the voter apathy which 
normally accompanies local elections.  It will be interesting 
to see whether the final election results confirm a low 
turnout. 
 
Electoral manipulation 
---------------------- 
 
5.  (C) Reftel described a litany of tactics used by the 
ruling party in advance of the rural council elections to 
block the registration of MDC candidates and generally tilt 
the process heavily in its favor.  While in the field, we 
learned of other devices used.  No MDC campaign rallies had 
been permitted, for instance, in the Matabeleland North 
constituencies of Tsholotsho, Nkayi, and Silobela in the 
pre-election period, so the opposition party was forced to 
conduct discreet, door-to-door compaigning where possible. 
In addition, the Registrar-General has refused to provide 
copies of the voters rolls to the MDC, as required by law, so 
the opposition had no idea how many people had registered to 
vote.  This issue was of particular concern in Insiza 
constituency, where an important parliamentary by-election 
will be held in late October to replace a deceased MDC MP. 
The MDC's elections coordinator for Matabeleland and Midlands 
provinces claimed that large numbers of outsiders were being 
transported to Insiza in army trucks to register to vote and 
it was impossible to analyze who they were without a copy of 
the voters roll. 
 
6.  (C) ZANU-PF also stepped up efforts to block independent 
scrutiny of the electoral process, including on the voting 
days themselves.  ZESN applied to have 5,000 observers 
accredited, approximately four per polling station.  In the 
end, the GOZ accredited only 209, a token number that ensured 
no meaningful observation effort could be conducted. 
According to ZESN's Rindai Chipfunde, even accredited 
observers were prevented from entering polling stations in 
Hurungwe West (Mashonaland West province), where a 
parliamentary by-election was being held the same weekend, 
Bindura (Mashonaland Central province), and Gutu (Masvingo 
province).  One of our teams visited three polling stations 
in Insiza constituency on the first day of voting; MDC 
polling agents were excluded at two of them because the 
presiding officers said they had not been officially 
registered, while we were unable to confirm the presence of 
MDC representatives at the third center.  The presiding 
officers at the first two stations -- one of whom was visibly 
uneasy and the other openly hostile -- told embassy observers 
they had been given specific instructions not to share any 
information with us.  For the latter official, that directive 
apparently included provision of his own name and the name of 
the particular polling station to which he was assigned.  The 
day before the election, the central government's senior 
official in the Matabeleland North town of Lupane -- the 
district administrator -- freely shared information with us 
about the  food shortage.  When we raised the local 
elections, he said he had been told that that was not an 
issue he could discuss.  Late on September 30, MDC national 
elections coordinator Nomore Sibanda told political section 
chief that he had received numerous reports of exclusion of 
MDC polling agents.  He was trying to get a sense of the 
national scope of the problem, but spotty communication with 
the party's representatives in the more isolated geographic 
regions made this difficult. 
 
Violence/intimidation 
--------------------- 
 
7.  (C) Reftel reported a number of incidents of violence and 
intimidation against aspiring MDC candidates and party 
supporters during the pre-election period.  All of the areas 
visited by our three teams had experienced significant 
political violence -- targeted predominantly at MDC 
supporters -- in the run-up to the presidential election in 
March.   The general level of political violence had declined 
since then in the five constituencies we observed in 
Matabeleland North and South, but a general climate of fear 
and tension was palpable in all of those areas.  The 
Chipinge/Chimanimani region in southeastern Zimbabwe, 
however, continued to experience politically-motivated 
violence in the run-up to the election and on the voting days 
themselves.  A German doctor at the hospital in Chipinge told 
us that, during the several weeks prior to the local 
elections, she had treated approximately 10 people for 
fractures and bruising that appeared attributable to 
political violence. 
 
8.  (C) Nomore Sibanda of the MDC shared with us preliminary 
evidence the party had gathered on violence and harassment 
occurring on the voting days.  The following incidents are 
only a few revealing examples drawn from Sibanda's much more 
substantial list: 
 
--ZANU-PF militia members assaulted MDC polling agent Godfrey 
Nyarota at a polling center in Ward 35 of Chipinge North 
(Manicaland province), while the MDC's aspiring council 
candidate was chased away from the same center. 
 
--In Chipinge North's Ward 31, known MDC supporters had their 
national identification cards -- necessary for voting -- 
confiscated at most polling stations, while ZANU-PF youths 
allegedly wearing police uniforms barred MDC polling agents 
from entering Madziwa polling station. 
 
--The senior police officer in the area (Chief Superintendent 
Mabunda, who is known to the embassy as a principal 
instigator of political violence in the Chipinge/Chimanimani 
area) appeared at Mwacheta primary school in Chipinge South 
wearing ZANU-PF regalia and threatening to shoot anyone who 
voted for the MDC.  MDC officials were barred from entering 
that polling station. 
 
--In Chipinge South's Ward 4, MDC candidate Menard Mishape 
was kidnapped by war veterans on the eve of the elections and 
is still missing. 
 
--MDC Member of Parliament Roy Bennett and his wife were 
arrested on September 29.  His wife has since been released 
but Bennett remains in custody. 
 
--In Gutu North (Masvingo), ZANU-PF supporters destroyed the 
shop of MDC member Mr. Makamure. 
 
--In Gutu South, some houses belonging to MDC supporters were 
burnt to the ground. 
 
--The MDC's candidates in Zaka East (Masvingo), Jekede and 
Mujere Nososo, were beaten in their homes by ZANU-PF militia 
on the eve of the elections. 
 
--In Murehwa South (Mashonaland East), 10 MDC polling agents 
were assaulted by war veterans as they attempted to deploy to 
polling stations on the first day of voting. 
 
Food politicization 
------------------- 
 
9.  (C)  All three of our diplomatic observer teams heard 
numerous accounts of government-procured food assistance 
being used to boost the political fortunes of the ruling 
party.  In many of the rural areas we visited, the GOZ's 
Grain Marketing Board (GMB) provided bags of maize meal to 
ZANU-PF councillors to use in their campaign efforts. 
Another common tactic employed  by ZANU-PF was to announce 
the distribution of food in the vicinity of, and at the 
precise time of, an MDC rally.  Hungry people understandably 
chose to attend the food distribution event, but were often 
turned away empty-handed once the nearby MDC rally had come 
to an end.  In addition, we heard reports from Amani Trust, a 
prominent human rights organization, and ordinary residents, 
of the GMB selling food only to those who produced ZANU-PF 
membership cards, or making it very difficult for known MDC 
supporters to purchase it.  J.J. Moyo of Amani Trust (please 
protect) claimed that fewer children are attending school in 
Lupane, in Matabeleland North, and have been forced to find 
piecemeal jobs in order to help their families buy food.  He 
also said that a number of children in Binga, in northwest 
Zimbabwe, had died recently after eating a poisonous root. 
One polling station we visited in Insiza constituency in 
Matabeleland South was normally used as a GMB depot, and we 
observed that some voters were given food after casting 
ballots, while others were not.  An independent council 
candidate told us that ZANU-PF had promised to give food to 
those who voted for it. 
 
10.  (C)  Cases of malnutrition are increasing in 
Matabeleland and Manicaland.  At St. Lukes Mission Hospital 
about 100 km north of the city of Bulawayo, the resident 
German doctor told us he has witnessed a dramatic rise in the 
numbers of adults and children affected by malnutrition in 
the last two months, and showed us a ward set aside for those 
cases.  The image was sobering.  All the toddlers were 
terribly thin, several were suffering from skin lesions and 
swelling attributable to protein deficiency, and at least one 
had the telltale sign of reddish hair.  The doctor said he 
expected all of these children to die from either HIV/AIDS, 
which afflicted 80-90 percent of the hospital's patients, or 
malnutrition.  In the meantime, he had enrolled these 
patients in a supplementary feeding program, but the success 
of this effort was complicated by the worsening food 
shortage. 
 
Comment 
------- 
 
11. (C) Rural areas have long been ZANU-PF's stronghold, and 
the ruling party was not about to allow the MDC to gain any 
significant inroads there.  The fact that ZANU-PF felt it 
necessary to employ an array of unashamed tactics -- 
including blocking the opposition from even contesting half 
the seats -- suggests a realization that the party no longer 
enjoys unparalled popularity in rural areas.   Given that the 
ruling party has succeeded in terrorizing large segments of 
the rural population -- our observer teams witnessed that 
first-hand in all of the areas we visited -- it is, frankly, 
a wonder that anyone had the courage to cast a vote for the 
opposition. 
 
12. (C) ZANU-PF has clearly perfected the art of winning 
elections, which they will continue to hold to cloak their 
move toward totalitarianism with a veneer of democracy.  The 
party cannot, however, avoid the reality that legitimacy is 
not conferred by an election in which the opposition and its 
supporters are subjected to massive intimidation and blocked 
from engaging in a genuine competition. The unavoidable fact 
remains that this is a deeply unpopular regime that will grow 
even more so as people's living standards continue to erode 
precipitously. 
 
 
 
 
SULLIVAN