Zimbabwe’s Wednesday elections are likely to be riddled with fraud and voter suppression despite recent signs of hope among the country’s civil society groups, regional experts said Monday.
The July 31 elections pit longtime President Robert Mugabe against Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai. Both formed a unity government in 2008 after Mugabe’s initial loss to Tsvangirai in that year’s elections sparked widespread violence by state security forces and resulted in hundreds of deaths.
Activist groups have engaged in extensive voter registration and mobilization efforts in recent weeks, but that probably will not be enough to secure credible election results, said Jeffrey Smith, advocacy officer for the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights.
Security forces continue to break up opposition rallies and intrude in the offices of civil society groups. The government has also banned shortwave radios, one of the few means of political communication for the 65 percent of Zimbabwe’s citizens who live in rural areas, Smith said.
Additionally, about 1 million persons currently on the official voter rolls are dead or reside outside the country. Tsvangirai penned an op-ed Sunday noting the alleged voter fraud schemes and claimed that Mugabe "is attempting to steal Zimbabwe’s most important election."
"The elections are not going to be in any way free, credible, or fair," Smith said.
Yet those opposed to Mugabe’s authoritarian rule have been achieving small victories. Smith spoke at the Heritage Foundation after a screening of the film "Beatrice Mtetwa & the Rule of Law," the story of a former Mugabe prosecutor who switched sides to assist victims of the president’s repressive regime.
Mtetwa often represents members of Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party. MDC leaders are routinely beaten and detained without charges, and in the most extreme cases have their houses burned down.
In 2010, 60 citizens were charged with allegedly insulting Mugabe under the Public Order and Security Act, but only two received convictions, according to Smith. The dearth of legitimate charges has enabled Mtetwa to win several cases on behalf of her clients, but the perpetrators are rarely apprehended.
The film highlights anecdotes like that of the mayor of Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital, who was driven out of office within a year of his election, beaten and imprisoned.
Although the law in Zimbabwe is currently "used as a political tool to stop certain persons from having a say in how their country is run," Mtetwa says in the film that the rule of law will be achieved in her lifetime because of the efforts of herself and other activist groups.
"This cannot continue," she says. "This system must be fought with everything you have."