Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum Report — Of Stuffed ballots and Empty Stomachs • to supervise the registration of voters and conduct of elections; • to appoint monitors; • to establish and chair an Observers’ Accreditation Committee for accrediting observers to observe elections; • to invite persons representing bodies in the SADC region which exercise similar functions • to observe Zimbabwean elections; and • to write and submit a report to the President or Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, as the case may be, soon after an election. Despite the fact that the voters’ roll is unsatisfactory and a key source of contention, the ESC did nothing to rectify the problem, leaving the Registrar-General, a self proclaimed and staunch ZANU(PF) supporter, to his own devices in this regard. In fact, apart from its role in accrediting observers and appointing monitors, the ESC did very little, leaving the bulk of the work to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission. It did, however, add to the confusion between its role and that of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) by appointing a Chief Elections Officer to carry out its mandate. ZEC also appoints a Chief Elections Officer. The ESC appointed a former army brigadier, Kennedy Zimondi, to this post. 3. Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) In tandem with the Electoral Supervisory Commission, section 3 of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission Act established the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission. The Commission should have been established by way of Constitutional amendment, and this body should have replaced the ESC. However, this path was closed to the Government as, prior to the election, the ruling party lacked the necessary two-thirds majority required for Constitutional amendments and the main opposition party would not have supported such an amendment.15 The Government’s motive in establishing an Electoral Commission in addition to the ESC, seems to have been to provide some basis upon which those sympathetic to it could claim that it had complied with the requirements of the SADC Guidelines.16 The Guidelines stipulate that an independent body be established to conduct elections and, given Mugabe’s power over its composition, the ESC most obviously does not meet this requirement. The establishment of the ZEC was thus merely a sop to regional leaders. The South African President, Thabo Mbeki, 15 16 On the ground that the ruling party had no intention of establishing a truly independent Electoral Commission. See above at p 1. 8