Zimbabwe elections hit by shortage of ballots

A police officer casts his ballot during the special voting day for registered members of the police and army in Harare yesterday.AFP/HarareZimbabwe security forces voted yesterday in an early election marred by delays over a lack of ballot papers just over two weeks before crucial presidential polls. Scores of uniformed police officers waited outside polling stations after the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) failed to deliver voting material on time. “This is the clearest manifestation of lack of readiness on the part of ZEC to conduct a credible poll,” said Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement of Democratic Change (MDC). “As a party we are concerned that if ZEC cannot manage 209 centres for this special vote, how will they manage over ten thousand polling stations on 31 July 2013?” According to the country’s electoral body, about 87,000 people, largely police officers who will be on duty on the election day, were set to vote yesterday and today. A reporter witnessed voting underway at only two of four vote stations visited. A crowd of uniformed police officers waited dejectedly at one site as late as 4pm for their names to be called out to cast ballots under the watch of regional monitors.Some were turned away as their ballot papers had not arrived.At another polling station in the capital, no ballots were being cast at 1pm (1100 GMT) as there were no vote papers. The month-end crunch vote will replace the uneasy unity government between rivals President Robert Mugabe, 89, and Tsvangirai, 61, that was forced by chaotic 2008 polls.Twitter users expressed their concerns that yesterday’s showing was a foretaste of what is to come. “If today’s #ZEC system failure is anything to go by, on 31 July there’ll be irreparable organ failure,” tweeted one person. Another user said: “this is just an insight of what July 31 will be like... #ZEC cant handle 87000 voters wat of the 6mil”.A live report on the website of the state-controlled The Sunday Mail outlined cases of voting material—from ballot boxes and the voters’ roll to ink—failing to arrive at different sites across the country. Some stations had received small batches of material, one taking delivery of just 14 ballot papers while another had only one paper. The July 31 date was set by Mugabe and a court later ruled that it would go ahead despite the veteran leader asking for a two-week delay after a regional bloc pushed for more time. Tsvangirai, who accuses Mugabe and his allies of failing to implement promised reforms, had wanted an even longer extension to allow time for the overhauls.The High Court in Harare will today hear a court challenge from the MDC over the special poll’s voters roll seeking “to nullify the voting process today and tomorrow”, lawyer Harrison said.Mugabe’s party lost its parliamentary majority to Tsvangirai’s party at the last elections for the first time since independence in 1980. Tsvangirai won the first round of the 2008 presidential vote, but pulled out of a run-off amid violence against his supporters.Some 200 opposition activists were killed around those polls.Security chiefs have openly showed support to Mugabe of the ZANU-PF party and have blasted Tsvangirai as a stooge of the West.In previous elections security forces voted in barracks and police camps unobserved.The security forces, which fall under Mugabe’s control, have in the past been accused of rights abuses and intimidating political opponents.In an advertisement in a Sunday newspaper, Tsvangirai urged the police and the soldiers to vote freely and said “we must be proud of you and not fear you”.“Congratulations. You are exercising your right to vote in secret. So, feel free. Vote for your choice,” he said.“After much lobbying, we managed to get through reforms which allow our men and women in uniform to vote in secret and away from the barracks, unlike in the past.”