Zimbabwe’s ruling party Zanu PF and opposition MDC have for the first time found a reason to agree on as both have hailed the South African polls as unique in their conformity retracing democratic principles on an even playing ground.
Elections in the neighbouring South Africa, cast a completely opposite version of elections that have always been held in Zimbabwe, characterized of violence, intimidation of the electorate, and compromised electoral processes.
Speaking from his base in South Africa, Zanu PF deputy youth Secretary Lewis Mathuthu, who forms the ruling party’s delegates observing elections in South Africa told 263Chat Thursday afternoon that South Africa’s Electoral Commission (IEC) has done a marvelous job to the continent.
“SA is a mature democratic country and the IEC is a very professional institution. The calm and peaceful environment that is prevailing in South Africa is marvelous and a pride to African. Zimbabwe 2018 elections set a very good pace in transforming the African continent into a mature and responsible democracy, SA has done it again and this should be the trend.
“Participation of young people in running processes of IEC is highly commendable,” Mathuthu said.
Mathuthu hinted that there are areas the local electoral mother body; Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) must learn in order to improve its services during election times.
“Both institutions are being run by very professional people, IEC has managed to accommodate more young people in the process of running elections something ZEC must improve. IEC uses professional people to run elections whilst ZEC uses civil servants (teachers) something that we need to improve,” he said.
MDC president Nelson Chamisa, who refused to accept ZEC’s presidential results alleging that they were skewed in favour of President Mnangagwa heaped praise on the South African electoral commission saying its management has performed way above ZEC whose work in the 2018 election were not verifiable, traceable and transparent at least according the European Observer Mission Report.
“Unlike with ZEC in Zimbabwe, the IEC of RSA results center is fully transparent. The management system works and each party has direct access to the portal receiving results from the polling stations. This works and no V11s are alterable. We demanded this kind of environment but we were denied access to the server,” Chamisa wrote on his micro-blog Twitter today.
Meanwhile, Zimbabweans across the divide have been calling for ZEC to emulate the neighbours when conducting elections further calling for public media to adopt the middle of the road approach when covering elections, plucking a leaf from South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC).
South Africa went to the polls yesterday and results have already started trickling in indicating that the ruling party African National Congress (ANC) is on the brink of retaining the majority vote with Julius Malema trailing in third position so far.
