Justice minister Patrick Chinamasa said the reforms would speed up the release of election results and bar police from polling booths.
He said Attorney General Johannes Tomana was now expected to work on a bill to amend the Electoral Act so that the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), among other things, would be obliged to release the results not more than five days after voting.
In 2008 ZEC delayed releasing the results of the first round of the presidential elections by close to a month sparking rumours that it was trying to rig the poll in favour of President Robert Mugabe.
The now supposedly independent commission will also be empowered to set up special courts to try election candidates, agents or parties implicated in acts of political violence.
Voters will also be required to register and vote at one polling station and candidates must fill in generic forms endorsed by their political parties.
The changes are meant to avoid the 2008 scenario where parties ended up fielding more than one candidate in one constituency.
The proposed reforms come at a time when Zanu PF is trying to wriggle out of an election roadmap being crafted with the assistance of South African President Jacob Zuma’s facilitation team.
The roadmap that was initialled by negotiators from Zanu PF and the two MDC formations seeks to deal with the issue of security sector reforms and freedom of expression, which are outside the proposed reforms approved by cabinet.
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MDC-T has put security sector reforms high on the agenda citing the involvement of soldiers in the 2008 electoral violence and army generals’ open support for Zanu PF.
However, Mugabe and Zanu PF say Zuma is overstepping his mandate and will not be allowed to engage the generals, now viewed as the biggest threat to a peaceful transition.
Zimbabwe has not held peaceful elections since independence and in the 1980s Mugabe’s attempts to neutralise his major rival the late Vice-President Joshua Nkomo’s support led to the massacre of 20 000 innocent people.
The violence was repeated in 2000, 2002 and 2008, which effectively condemned Zimbabwe to its pariah state status.
Besides the violence, there have been calls for an overhaul of the voters’ roll, which is known to contain names of dead people and even babies.
“It is important at this juncture to intensify lobbying efforts on the need to overhaul the present voters roll which is known through various voter’s roll audits to be in shambles,” the Election Resource Centre (ERC) said.
“With ZEC having indicated that the process of re-registration of voters would require at least six months, it is prudent to conduct the fresh registration of voters before the next general election.”
The ERC also welcomed the proposed removal of police officers from polling booths but called for an end to the selective application of the law.
REFORMS UNLIKELY TO IMPROVE ELECTORAL ENVIRONMENT
The Election Resource Centre (ERC), in a recent analysis of the proposed reforms, said while the fact that the three governing parties agreed on the need to reform both the constitutional and electoral frameworks was an important step in normalising Zimbabwe’s “fouled political environment,” it was not a guarantee that the next polls will be free and fair.
“While in the past, good laws have been developed and promulgated, the problem with Zimbabwe might not have been entirely about obnoxious and restrictive laws in existence, but has more to do with a bad political culture shown by political players,” ERC said.
“This culture negates and chooses to ignore even laid down rules and regulations, at times, in pursuit of selfish individual or group desires.”
ERC says even though there were legal guarantees for a free and fair poll in Zimbabwe the process was threatened by selfish politicians.
“It is such a political behaviour by politicians which has left Zimbabwe with a shameful label of disrespecting the rule of law, abuse of human rights, anarchy culminating in conflict-ridden political engagements at both national and international level,” the centre said.
“The nation’s hope is that through the proposed reforms to the Electoral Act, necessary reforms will be undertaken to redefine civilised political engagements.
“The transitional authority offers an opportunity to set new parameters that would guide the nation’s political conduct and interaction.”
It added that for the reforms to be successful, the political players “must cultivate a culture that gives respect to the rule of law.”
