What happened in Leeds was sadistic and I do not think that it is a phenomenon that should ever exist in a modern Party like MDC if we are not careful we are slowly graduating into a mirror image of Zanu Pf. So let us reflect on what happened and we can rectify this culture that is being introduced into the Party. The evidence one can require is in full existence, below are the snippets what evidence exists and conceptual framework of electoral fraud.
There are three types of evidence:
- Direct evidence,
- Circumstantial evidence
- Testimonial evidence.
Direct Evidence is evidence which would directly illustrate a point in controversy. In our case election results secretly announced, then changed 1) the winner lost the election 2)
that the winner was made to lose by this calibre of a Presiding Officer who decided to steal the voices of the general membership. Under this there is a whole lot of evidence such as
election process, environment, electoral authority, role of interested parties and delegate essential information
Circumstantial Evidence is evidence which allows a trier of fact for an inference to be drawn from it that tends to prove a point in controversy. An example of circumstantial evidence would be the following: I see a person who is not a delegate voting or the votes were counted then later changed. I go away. I come back the next two and my votes changed to lesser number. The lesser votes on my vote totals allow us to infer that votes were stolen fraudulently while I was away. Evidence in this respect includes voting and counting operation, release of election results, electoral grievance adjudication, agents and voter lists as required by our constitution
Testimonial Evidence is the statements made or admitted in courts which tend to prove a material fact. Testimonial evidence may encompass either direct evidence or circumstantial evidence or may have aspects of each. Additionally, certain types of evidence such as character evidence, opinion evidence, habit evidence, and hearsay evidence are usually introduced through testimonial evidence. This includes characterisation for example Moyo's
speech which was decisive rather than uniting and insulting the very member who is the backbone of the Party.
All the above are evidence admissible in any court of law. The Presiding officer has a case to answer forget the name of the Party but think about the snobbish culture that is being
estranged in the Party and we do not want in any measure or form this culture that is stealing an internal election. We will also need to understand the dimensions and conceptual framework of fraud for it does not only happen in Zanu PF it was very evident at our own MDC Congress aided by those people that claim to be our leaders. As members we have a common duty here to stop this cancer for good!!
Election rigging refers to electoral malpractices which are palpable illegalities committed with a corrupt, fraudulent or sinister intention to influence an election in favour of a candidate(s) by means such as illegal voting, bribery, treating and undue influence, intimidation and other acts of coercion exerted on voters, falsification of results, fraudulent announcement of a losing candidate as winner (without altering the recorded results). Electoral practices are to be distinguished from mere electoral irregularities which relate to non-compliance with prescribed procedure at election, like late commencement of polling, polling outside the statutorily stipulated time, late delivery of electoral materials. Electoral malpractices and electoral irregularities differ not only in their nature but also in their legal consequences; whilst the latter do not, in general, invalidate an election, the former emphatically does. Every bit of the above was experienced in Leeds. By its nature, election rigging, particularly of the massive kind alleged to have been perpetrated during the 2 April 2011 MDC UK and Ireland Congress, is a subversion of the
MDC Constitution and of the democratic form of governance instituted by the MDC Constitution; as such, it is treason, albeit not in the technical, narrow sense defined in the
Criminal Code and even the MDC’s code of ethics and values. It is robbery of the right of the people to participate in their own governance; or, in Wole Soyinka's more telling metaphor,
"the stealing, the theft, of their voices". It is therefore the gravest offence that can be committed against the MDC Constitution and its wider membership by enforcing arranged
victories by losers. It is thus something of an irony, a mocking irony that a call should have been made for the arrest for treason, not of those guilty of the massive rigging being
complained of, but of those making the complaint and calling on the membership to protest against it.
So the evidence so required is there but these pressure points as highlighted below are important. Some might come with the mythology of protection the name of the Party, yes I agree but
we should never compromise our ethics and values. What we experienced in Leeds is not only a grievance, discrepancy or a dispute but it is a brutal electoral fraud that mirrors the
African birth right, for we are failing to shake it. For how long shall we keep quiet and here are the memories:
- Funds laundered during Chawora Executive and the report was suppressed
- Recently Funds disappeared in MDC account and the membership was never informed.
Is this then the measured leadership that is required to run the affairs of this Province? For the current one, if the membership knows this then then the credibility will vanish like thin air.
Godfrey Magwindiri
MDC Birmingham
