Late in the evening on 26 August the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) announced the results of the
Zimbabwe 2023 Harmonised Elections.
As a result of the drastic lengths the Government of Zimbabwe took to prevent nonpartisan, independent observation of the counting and tabulation process, the Election Resource Centre (ERC) and the Zimbabwe
Election Support Network (ZESN) are unable to verify the outcome of the presidential election.
ERC and ZESN jointly deployed thousands of accredited observers to every province, district and constituency of the country using a statistically-sound sample to systematically observe the elections on behalf of all Zimbabweans, and independent of any other effort. This includes the collection of publicly available information in order to provide stakeholders and citizens with factual statements on the conduct of the voting and counting process, as well as the tabulation and announcement of results. All of which is legal and recognized in the electoral act, and has been a routine observation activity in Zimbabwe since
2008.
ZESN deployed sample-based observation (SBO) during the 2018 elections and made public its projections after ZEC declared the presidential election results. The projections were well received by President ED Mnangagwa who tweeted affirming the SBO projections. The objective SBO projections were also relied upon by ZEC in the Constitutional Court during the hearing of the presidential petition in 2018. ZESN and ERC were also encouraged by ZEC, who through the ZEC chairperson, noted that civil society as well as political parties should conduct parallel voter tabulations (PVT) during the 2023 elections.
However, on election night, just as the counting process was concluding in many parts of the country, government security forces raided ERC and ZESN’s data centre, arresting all present staff and volunteers and confiscating all equipment. They also targeted and seized other staff in nearby locations, in some cases violently. The security forces’ uncalled and unjustified actions not only prevented an independent nonpartisan verification of the official results as announced by the ZEC, but also cast a shadow over the entire election process.
Since election day, ERC and ZESN have continued to receive reports of observers and staff being targeted, threatened, and attacked, including one incident of an observer’s house being torched hours after the declaration of the presidential election results. This ongoing intimidation and silencing of anyone who can provide verification and transparency to the electoral results by state actors fundamentally undermines their credibility and the credibility of these elections.
ERC and ZESN call on the government to drop the charges levied against our staff and observers, and to take urgent measures to protect and stop harassment of accredited citizen election observers. To increase transparency of the tabulation process, we also call on the ZEC to make disaggregated polling station level results publicly available online for all 12,370 stations. Despite the efforts, often violent, to prevent legal observation of the election, ERC and ZESN are committed to the peace. We call for peace, for anyone who is aggrieved to seek redress through lawful means, and for the Government of Zimbabwe to respect the rights of citizens. In line with our mandate and commitment to electoral integrity, ERC and ZESN will continue to observe the election during the post election period through the resolution of election disputes and the taking of office by the duly elected candidates.
