Despite the international outcry, Operation Murambatsvina passed quickly into the annals of history, and the assertions that urban renewal was a subterfuge for pre-empting urban unrest remained untested. 2.4.4 The 2008 elections and the Global Political Agreement The 2008 Harmonised Elections, held in March 2008, were probably the most peaceful and least conflictual elections since 1980, but the inconclusive result of the Presidential Poll lead to arguably the most violent election. The elections in 2008 had been preceded by at least very egregious episodes of torture. The first, in 2006, involved the arrest and torture of the leadership of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions [ZCTU], whilst the second in 2007 (which did raise the concern of the international community and even the ire of SADC) involved the torture while in police custody of the senior leaders of the MDC and others after attempting to hold a public prayer meeting for peace. The Zimbabwe government attempted to mitigate the international opprobrium by releasing a report from the Zimbabwe Republic Police [ZRP]29, alleging that there actions had been in response to violence by the MDC, but the assertions were so outrageously incorrect that they were easily refuted30. The blatant torture did however goad SADC into action, and steps were taken to engage ZANU PF and the MDC in dialogue ahead of the proposed elections in 2008. Whilst few expected these elections to conform to international standards, the negotiations produced one surprise, the insistence that the results of the poll be posted publicly outside each and every polling station, and this proved to be ZANU PF’s undoing. Whilst little else in the run-up to the election vaguely approached the much-vaunted SADC Principles and Guidelines for the holding of Democratic Elections, the process was peaceful, and the results were astonishing. The Tsvangirai faction of the MDC won an overall majority in the election for the House of Assembly, majorities in most of the local government constituencies, broke even with ZANU PF in the Senate election, and, when the results of the Presidential election were finally announced (after a delay of five weeks), Morgan Tsvangirai had beaten Robert Mugabe into second place. Since Tsvangirai had not obtained an absolute majority, a run off was required under Zimbabwean law., Determined to ensue that Mugabe did not suffer a second defeat, a campaign of violence against the MDC was immediately planned and implemented31. The violence will be dealt with in detail later, but here it is enough to note that it was so extreme as to force the withdrawal of the Tsvangirai and the MDC from the second election, and the repudiation of the result by all and everyone; not even SADC or the AU could countenance accepting this result. The way forward surprisingly was not to return to the results of the March poll, but for SADC to push for an agreement to set up a government of national unity under the facilitation of Thabo Mbeki, who was still then President of South Africa. This resulted, after much acrimony, in the signing of a “Global Political Agreement” on 15th September, 2009, and the establishment of an “Inclusive” Government” six months later. It is worth making a few comments here about the March elections. It was evident from careful analysis that the results tediously published by the official Zimbabwe Electoral Commission [ZEC] conformed very strongly to the results published by other bodies, such as the NGO, Sokwanele, for the House of Assembly and the Senate. In fact the fit between the ZEC results and the results obtained from Parallel Voter Tabulation [PVT] was remarkably good, and the correlation between the two polls was hugely significant statistically speaking32. The crunch question was whether Morgan Tsvangirai had obtained an overall majority [more than 50%] on the Presidential poll, and here Zimbabwe and the world had to wait for weeks while ZEC delayed the result, in so doing ZEC violated the law in many ways33. The waiting for the result was given added flavour by the announcement by the MDC-T that they had won the Presidential poll with an absolute majority (which resulted in the Secretary-General, Tendai Biti, being charged with treason) and also by the Zimbabwe Election Support Network [ZESN] announcing the result of their Sample Based Observation, which gave Morgan Tsvangirai the overall majority with 49.4%, but with a possible range of between 47% to 51.8%34. Independent analysis suggested that Tsvangirai had won with 50.76%, with an argument based on the improbability of Simba Makoni receiving the 8% alleged by ZESN in their SBO, and the high probability of many ZANU PF voters voting for their party in the House of Assembly, Senate, and Local Government elections, but not for Robert Mugabe in the Presidential election35. This cannot be conclusively proved in the absence of ZEC publishing all the results of the March poll. It should also be noted that, in the March poll, MDC-T made a much better showing than usual in the rural areas, winning sufficient rural seats to give it a majority in Parliament. The ratio behind the requirement in electoral systems for a run off is to determine the placement of the vote for those who had voted for other candidates where there are more than two contestants. However, despite all the evidence to the contrary, and ignoring the clearly demonstrated political will of the Zimbabwean electorate, SADC put its energy behind the requirement for a run off between Morgan Tsvangirai and Robert Mugabe. 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 Page 8 The ZRP actually released two reports. See “Opposition Forces in Zimbabwe: A Trail of Violence” (the first report) and “Opposition Forces in Zimbabwe: The Naked Truth, Volume 2”. (the second report). See Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum (2007), At Best a Falsehood, At Worst a Lie? Shooting Oneself in the Foot? Comments on the Zimbabwe Republic Police Report “Opposition Politics in Zimbabwe. A Trail of Violence. June 2007. HARARE: ZIMBABWE HUMAN RIGHTS NGO FORUM. It can be plausibly argued that the SADC decision to support the run off, and not push politically for the acceptance of the March poll, was an incentive for ZANU PF to unleash the violence. The rationale here is that, whatever the result of the Presidential poll, Morgan Tsvangirai had a majority, and this could have been used by SADC as the basis for negotiating a transfer of power. Here see Kwinjeh. G (2008), Staring a gift horse in the mouth. Death Spiral in Zimbabwe: Mediation, Violence and the GNU. 18 June 2008. See SITO (2008), ZIMBABWE ELECTIONS 2008. Examining The Popular and Presidential Choice - Hiding or Run Off? IDASA: PRETORIA. See SITO (2008), The Inconvenient Truth. A complete guide to the delay in releasing the results of Zimbabwe’s presidential poll. Prepared by Derek Matyszak of the Research and Advocacy Unit, Zimbabwe. IDASA: PRETORIA. In a very belated report ZESN reported that Tsvangirai had actually received 47.9%. See SITO (2008), What happened in the Presidential election? Research & Advocacy Unit, Zimbabwe. IDASA: PRETORIA.