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elections, which were defining in that they marked the end of colonial rule and the dawning of
political independence, were also not spared.
The 2000 parliamentary elections, which ushered in a new political player, the Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) were worse. The emergence and subsequent serious challenge on
Zanu-PF’s stranglehold on power created a new, but not very alien, culture of hate politics in the
country. This culture has created political bitterness, intolerance and thuggery that has,
unfortunately, characterised our elections since the turn of the century.
The 2002 Presidential election marked the consolidation of totalitarianism and thickening of
intolerance. It also brought in the notion of winning elections “by an means necessary” (Zanu-PF
Central committee meeting minutes March 2007). This election laid bare the electoral chicanery
that Zanu-PF had already been suspected of. As noted by Professor Jonathan Moyo, the former
Minister of Information and Publicity in Mugabe’s government, the incumbent used, in the 2002
Presidential election, the military, national intelligence, police forces, government ministries and
departments and traditional chief to win the election (Zimbabwe Independent July 29 –02 August
2007).
Allegations of vote rigging by the incumbent are as old as the electoral system in the country. The
late Vice President Joshua Nkomo, in his personal memoirs, The Story of My Life, believes the
1980 elections were rigged and that Zanu-PF used militias to condone off some parts of the rural
areas it believed to be potential strongholds of his political party, The Zimbabwe African People’s
Union (Zapu). He points out to politically motivated violence, murder and rape perpetrated on
political competitors as some of the ways Zanu-PF used to steal the 1980 election. “…the British
election supervisors in an interim report had told the governor that more than half of the electorate
was living in conditions where a free vote could not take place. Zapu was cheated out of some
seats it could have won, given a fair campaign,” he noted in his personal account of the tyranny
that characterise Mugabe’s misrule.
The 2000 parliamentary elections were also littered with alleged acts of violence after the
militarisation of Zimbabwean politics when the war veterans entered the political fray after the
February 2000 constitutional referendum.