On the 8th of August, the Douglas Mwonzora led Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) pulled out of the August 23 general elections, citing electoral irregularities from the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC).
Mwonzora’s election boycott came after 87 House of Assembly candidates from his party were barred by the Electoral mother body from participating in this year’s watershed elections.
This is the first time in fifteen years that the MDC has boycotted an election, having pulled out of the widely condemned June 27, 2008 Presidential election runoff that pitted then leader Morgan Tsvangirai against the incumbent President Robert Mugabe.
The MDC leader said contesting in the upcoming elections is “foolish bravery.”
However, critics say Mwonzora knew that he was going to perform dismally in this election and therefore pulled out as a way of remaining relevant in the politics of the land.
Mwonzora’s election boycott has been rubbished by some political analysts who said his withdrawal from the polls was “an act of cowardice” as he knew that his fate had been sealed.
“The end of MDC came when Douglas Mwonzora and lot chose to subvert the will of the people,” said political analyst Agerncy Gumbo. The end came when he chose to fight Nelson Chamisa who is the people’s darling and is the people’s choice for an alternative government in this country.”
Gumbo said Mwonzora’s exit from the election race depicted his incapability to fight for his supporters.
“His pulling out shows his incapacity to fight for a democratic space, his inability and his inadequacy to represent the will of the majority people of Zimbabwe.”
Another political analyst Paradzai Chakona said Mwonzora exacerbated his political irrelevance by boycotting the election.
“I’m not sure he was trying to remain relevant, by pulling out of the race he became irrelevant,” he said. He was supposed to run the race until the last day and when you put up your man as your Presidential candidate you are supposed to campaign and make yourself known and by pulling out he is actually saying l am not worthy being elected.”
Although Mwonzora’s pulling out of the race was defined by his detractors as an non event, the move can also be seen to be noble given the plethora of electoral irregularities which will make the election likely fail the test of free, fair and credible.
Given the myriad of complaints from the opposition regarding the conduct of ZEC, the Judiciary and Police during the election period, one can almost see sense in Mwonzora’s boycott.
Entering an election without access to fundamental things like the voters’ roll, knowledge on the number of polling stations, access to Public Media among others may not be a wise thing to do if the opposition is serious about winning.
On Tuesday the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) condemned the postal voting process which it described as rigged, claiming that its agents and other observers were not invited to be part of the process. Postal voting is reserved for Police, diplomatic staff and other civil servants.
“We denounce command voting which was taking place in some of the camps,” said CCC spokesperson Fadzai Mahere.
Mahere also bemoaned the inaccessibility of the ballot paper which she said was printed without the opposition’s knowledge, adding that they were not sure if they were going to inspect it prior to election day.
The alleged irregularities have infuriated opposition CCC supporters, with many accusing the party leadership of lacking seriousness and having a knack for acting at the last minute.
“I can see we are still trapped in our modus-operandi and we don’t learn from our past experiences, said one CCC supporter. There is a euphoria which grips people whenever they see crowds. They quickly forget about the voters roll and other important unresolved electoral issues.”