Is Zim ripe for fresh elections?

Be that as it may, the million-dollar question that cannot be answered with any degree of certainty is: Are Zimbabweans ready for elections any time soon given the tragedies they experienced in the past?
The signals coming from the main political parties that are signatories to the Global Political Agreement (GPA) signed in September last year indicate a lack of preparedness for national elections in the foreseeable future.
In the court of public opinion, the parties are deliberately subverting the constitution-making process because none of them is confident of winning a free and fair poll.
The lack of a clear timeframe guiding the coalition on when exactly the nation should ready itself for fresh polls after the divisive June 2008 presidential run-off is a case in point.
The terms of the GPA have been, whether intentionally or out of error, been cryptic and vexatious so much that implementing the power-sharing pact is like solving a crossword puzzle without any clues.
Analysts say the fact that the GPA did not fix a timeframe for the holding of elections is in itself indicative of the latent conspiracy between ZANU-PF and the two formations of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) to see their current terms through to 2013.
It goes without saying that most sitting councillors and legislators would want to see their current terms of office through than submit themselves to an electoral process in which they do not have control over its outcome.
It is even worse for the smaller formation of the MDC whose entire leadership lost elections last year, but now occupy influential positions in the inclusive government thanks to the GPA.
While elections are more of a battle of wits in some countries, they have been taken to mean a declaration of war in Zimbabwe.
Lives have been lost in the run up to elections while thousands of people were scarred — a sad reminder of the divisiveness of elections in this country.
Last year’s elections explosive.
Zimbabwe went to the polls in March last year that were synchronised to acco-mmodate local go-vernment, legislative and presidential elections.
The polls spaw-ned disharmony of unimaginable proportions, mainly caused by the disputed June 27 presidential election run-off bet-ween President Ro-bert Mugabe of ZANU-PF and the MDC-T’s Morgan Tsvangirai.
Tsvangirai who is now Prime Minister withdrew from the race citing intimidation and violence aga-inst his supporters resulting in the Southern African Development Co-mmunity and the African Union arm-twisting ZANU-PF and the two MDC factions to forge an inclusive government to deal with the disputed outcome produced by a one-man preside-ntial run-off.
Tsvangirai clai-med scores of his supporters were killed before, during and after last year’s election, allegations denied by ZANU-PF.
Given this frightening background, the spectre of fresh elections is therefore, something Zimbabweans do not look up to.
Political analyst John Makumbe said electoral fatigue had clearly taken its toll on the country in the past decade and having another poll anytime soon will just be too much for Zimbabweans.
“It’s too early to hold elections because it is too close to the June 27 (2008) fiasco and people are aware of the violence that occurred. An election now could only be a win for ZANU-PF because the cohesive apparatus of the State are still solely in the hands of ZANU-PF and not the inclusive government. These apparatus are and were instrumental in influencing the outcome of previous elections,” he said.
“As long as there is no firm handle on the cohesive apparatus by the inclusive government as a whole, the environment will remain hostile and not conducive for elections. The political playing field is still uneven and heavily tilted in ZANU-PF’s favour because ZANU-PF still has its people in place,” added Makumbe.
The chairman of the Zimbabwe Journalists for Human Rights, Pedzisai Ruhanya, said Zimbabwe was not yet ready to hold elections because “the hallmark of a democracy is a free press,” and that was missing because of the absence of the Zimbabwe Media Commission yet to be sworn into office by President Mugabe.
Other bodies such as the Electoral Commission are also still to be set up.
Ruhanya said journalists should be able to interrogate the political process in the country without fear of being arrested, kidnapped or even tortured.
“Zimbabwe is not ready to hold elections because the framework for holding fresh and free elections whose outcome will be accepted by the people is not there.  The whole constitution-making process is flawed therefore it will produce a flawed outcome and put into dispute the legitimacy of winners of any of the elections. Zimbabwe needs to demilitarise the bodies that run elections for any outcome to be accepted.
The people need to be involved and the process should not be left to politicians alone,” said Ruhanya.
Matthew Takaona, president of the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists concurred saying there was still acrimony in the country making the staging of free and fair elections impossible.
“There is still a lot of acrimony in the air,” Takaona said.
“There are a lot of things to be ironed out before we even start talking about elections like what the politicians are doing. There is no management put in place to handle elections. People still have memories of what transpired in the last elections and I don’t think Zimbabweans are ready yet. They are still nursing the wounds from the last election. They need time.”
Political analyst Godwine Mureriwa was of the same opinion.
He said: “Those in elected positions seem to converge their interests on the basic instinct of survival. This cuts across, from bottom to top. It is only the politicians who lost in the previous elections or the leadership aspirants that will wish for an election before 2013. That reality, coupled with general electoral fatigue, lack of concern for elections and their outcome make a combination of general lack of preparedness.”
The inclusive government has not committed itself on when the country will go for another round of elections.
President Mugabe has made a number of statements in recent times hinting that elections were unlikely to come any time soon because of the bickering over the use of the Kariba Draft as a basis of crafting a new constitution.
He said elections will be held two years after the constitution-making process. The President also told the ZANU-PF Youth League that in the event that the seemingly infamous Kariba Draft does not see the light of day, then elections will be held in 2013, and under provisions of the current Lancaster House Constitution.
The government has however, created a Ministry of National Healing, Reconciliation and Integration to bring “lasting peace” to the nation.
But red flags have been flying high because the civic society is unhappy with the current arrangement whereby politicians whose parties were at the forefront of the violence are driving the constitution making process.