Canadian Mennonite
Volume 12, No. 9
April 28, 2008
Post-election tension remains
Mennonite organizations supporting Zimbabweans awaiting the results of national elections in March
Bulawayo, Zimbabwe
Zimbabweans are anxiously awaiting the official results of national elections conducted on March 29, according to Dumisani O. Nkomo, the chief executive officer of a Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) partner organization monitoring the voting process.
“There is a lot of tension,” Nkomo said from Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second-largest city, on March 31. “People don’t know whether to celebrate or not, because the [electoral] commission is releasing results bit by bit, and they are only releasing results where the ruling party has always got strongholds.”
MCC provided $10,000 to Habakkuk Trust, a Zimbabwean Christian advocacy organization, to help monitor the electoral process in and around Bulawayo. Habakkuk Trust trained and organized 60 volunteers to monitor electoral centres before, during and after the voting process.
Nkomo said election monitors from Habakkuk Trust and other organizations are reporting that opposition candidates won by a wide margin in the Bulawayo area. He said the electoral commission appears to be delaying the release of results in areas where opposition candidates defeated the ruling party, the Zimbabwe African National Union—Patriotic Front.
Under the presidency of Robert Mugabe, the ruling party has been in power since Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980. Since 2000, Zimbabwe has suffered an economic collapse, with sky-high inflation, widespread unemployment and the mass emigration of working-age adults. Basic services such as health care have deteriorated dramatically, Nkomo said.
Nkomo said that many Zimbabweans believe Mugabe rigged a previous bid for re-election in 2002, and that the current delay in releasing results is creating fear that vote totals are being altered to ensure another Mugabe victory.
“For the first time in years, people have had hope,” he said. “But as time goes on, hopelessness is creeping in, tension is creeping in.”
Zimbabwe’s Brethren in Christ (BIC) Church also organized 20 volunteers to monitor the elections, and an MCC staff person served as an election observer from the Swaziland Council of Churches, according to Bruce Campbell-Janz, MCC Africa co-director.
However, four election observers from South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia sent by Mennonite World Conference (MWC) at the invitation of the BIC Church were denied accreditation.
“The [Mugabe] government is generally keen at accrediting those groups that they believe are friendly to them. The church is often viewed with suspicion,” explained Danisa Ndlovu, MWC president-elect, adding that political leaders also know that the church represents a significant constituency that cannot easily be ignored.
Without accreditation, these observers could not enter polling stations, but they did visit polls in Harare and several rural areas. They talked with people going in and out of the polling stations and to police who were on hand to maintain order, and it was felt the quiet presence of the MWC observers made a positive difference in the election process.
The BIC Church saw the response of MWC to its invitation to send observers as “another practical effort by the worldwide family of faith to walk alongside their brothers and sisters at a very crucial time of seeking to discern God’s will,” said one of the unaccredited observers.
A change of government should give Zimbabweans new hope and a better economic situation, noted Ndlovu, but it will take time. “We have not crossed the bridge yet!” he warned. “We call upon the church around the world to be in prayer for Zimbabwe at this important time.”