Not what most people think! The Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front does not staff ballot boxes with ballot papers but it still rigs elections, Joice Mujuru, former Vice President and now leader of Zimbabwe People First told eNCA.
She had been asked by Thulasizwe Simelane, who worked in Zimbabwe for three years, whether elections were ever rigged in Zimbabwe as often reported.
“I think when they say elections were rigged and I say Yes ..is a moment when the kraal heads were being asked to whip up their people to go and vote a certain party which was ZANU-PF. Yes by that practice one would say it’s a rigging process,” Mujuru said.
“And by even asking the soldiers to go an run a programme called maguta or produce more for people to have enough on their plates. Yes it was not a good thing to do that. Why ask soldiers to leave their containments to go and do a political chore. It should have been left to politicians to do that.
“To actually vouch for a moment when ballot boxes were staffed with ballot papers, I did not witness that.”
The Movement for Democratic Change which came on to the scene in the 2000 Parliamentary elections has claimed that every election after that has been rigged or stolen.
Zimbabwe has held four elections after that. These were the 2002 presidential elections, 2005 Parliamentary elections, 2008 harmonised elections and the 2013 harmonised elections.
ZANU-PF beat the MDC by a wide margin in 2005 and 2013.
Mugabe narrowly beat MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai in 2002 but lost to Tsvangirai in March 2008.
Tsvangirai, however, did not garner enough votes to become president leading to a run-off from which he pulled out after violence engulfed the country.
The MDC split after its dismal loss in 2005 and once again after the disastrous 2013 elections.
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Vote rigging starts long before election day
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