Rita Makarau is the ZEC chairperson. She is also a judge of
the Supreme Court of Zimbabwe. In addition, she is also the secretary of the
Judicial Service Commission (JSC).
Effectively, she is simultaneously holding onto three very
demanding and challenging jobs. Obviously, this untenable state of affairs
flies in the face of well–established principles of good corporate governance
that are meant to avoid conflict of interest, amongst other things.
Put bluntly, it isn’t a healthy state of affairs to have
one individual holding onto these three very important and demanding jobs at
the same time. Surely, Zimbabwe doesn’t suffer from any chronic shortage of
suitably qualified and experienced people to take up some of the jobs that Rita
Makarau is holding onto.
In almost all the other SADC countries, the position of
chairperson of an electoral management body is invariably a full–time vocation.
This is mainly so because the job is a very busy and demanding assignment that
cannot be effectively shared by an individual who is holding onto other jobs.
The MDC is deeply concerned by this anomalous state of
affairs whereby Rita Makarau occupies three crucial jobs at the same time.
Particularly as we move towards the holding of elections in 2018, it would be
more appropriate for Rita Makarau to make a choice of which particular job she
would like to keep. She cannot keep on blowing hot and cold; approbating and
reprobating.
We are not even sure whether or not Rita Makarau is
actually being separately paid for all the three jobs that she is currently
holding onto. Should this be the case, then this would certainly be a scandal
of monumental proportions. As it is, ZEC is seriously lagging behind with the
process of procuring adequate BVR kits to operationalize the BVR exercise.
It is not unreasonable for us to suspect that may be Rita
Makarau is overwhelmed by the challenges of the three jobs that she is
currently performing. The MDC, therefore, is calling for the immediate
assignment of Rita Makarau to only one job at a time. This will bode well for
the holding of well–prepared, transparent, free and fair elections next year.
President Robert Mugabe has gazetted that voter
registration is kicking off on September 14, 2017 until January 15, 2018. ZEC
has not come out very clear to advise and clarify to the nation whether they
would be able to complete the BVR exercise in this space of time as gazetted by
Mugabe.
There is a lot of vagueness surrounding the issue of
whether ZEC, as the constitutional body mandated with the responsibility of
running elections in Zimbabwe, is actually ready for this exercise. Mugabe and
the Zanu PF regime that he fronts are not worthy of the people’s trust.
Previous elections in Zimbabwe have been routinely rigged
in favour of Zanu PF and as such, we would like to ascertain whether or not ZEC
is adequately capacitated and ready to roll out the BVR exercise countrywide.
The toiling masses of Zimbabwe are sick and tired of being taken for granted.
Once beaten twice shy.
Credible, free and fair elections are essential in
extricating Zimbabwe from the prevailing political meltdown and socio –
economic stagnation and retrogression. The consequences of holding unfree and
unfair elections next year are just too ghastly to contemplate.
Obert Chaurura Gutu
MDC National Spokesperson
0 comments:
Post a Comment