Dear SADC - CCC now invents false excerpts from the Mumba SADC Preliminary report

Dear SADC,

DESPERATE CCC NOW INVENTS FALSE 'EXCERPTS' FROM THE MUMBA SADC PRELIMINARY REPORT

This reply to the above post by the CCC official spokesperson, Promise Mkwananzi, is addressed to you SADC to bring to your attention a matter of grave public concern involving the continued falsification of the published Preliminary Statement of the Sadc Election Observation Mission [SEOM] by the CCC.

You need to intervene to protect the integrity of Sadc and its processes.

🟡SEOM REPORT EXCERPT: 1/ Prior to election day, ZEC had assured our Mission and other stakeholders, that all necessary voting materials, including ballot papers, were available and ready for use before election day. This communication was made in the context of section 52A(2) of…

— Promise Mkwananzi (@pmkwananzi) October 3, 2023

Your attention is drawn to Mkwananzi's five bullet points in general, all of them purported to be verbatim excerpts from the SEOM report; and in particular please note bullet points 3 and 4, which are reproduced below for ease of reading under "ISSUE ONE", and "ISSUE TWO":

ISSUE ONE:

"SEOM REPORT EXCERPT: 3/ In at least more than 500 of polling stations observed, indelible ink was not checked on the voters before allowing them to cast their vote. #FreshElectionsZW🇿🇼 #NoToAnother5Years"

MY COMMENT ON BULLET 3:

First, please note that Mkwananzi's bullet 3 above is purported to be taken verbatim as it is from the published SEOM Preliminary Statement.

Second, please note that the whole bullet 3, allegedly that "in at least more than 500 polling stations observed, indelible ink was not checked on the voters before allowing them to cast their vote";  is actually nowhere in the published SEOM Preliminary Statement. Nowhere.

Third, nowhere in the SEOM Preliminary Statement is there an indication that the SEOM team observed more than 500 polling stations as purported under bullet 3.  In point of fact, the SEOM Preliminary Statement clearly states that its team observed a total of 172 polling stations.  

The "more than 500 polling stations, which Mkwananzi says were observed by SEOM under bullet 3 of his post is a figment of the imagination of CCC; which has absolutely nothing to do with SEOM's Preliminary Statement. The figment of Mkwananzi's imagination is in fact a gross and criminal falsification of the SEOM preliminary report.

ISSUE TWO:

"SEOM REPORT EXCERPT: 4/ Ballot boxes did not remain locked and/or sealed at more than 300 of the polling stations observed by SEOM. #FreshElectionsZW🇿🇼 #NoToAnother5Years"

MY COMMENT ON BULLET 4:

First, regarding bullet 4 of Mkwananzi's post, please note that there is absolutely nothing in the SEOM Preliminary Statement about the SEOM team having  observed "Ballot boxes" that "did not remain locked and/or sealed at more than 300 of the polling stations observed by SEOM".

Second, and as pointed out under Issue One above, please note that the SEOM Preliminary Statement clearly states that the SEOM team observed only 172 polling stations. The reference to "more than 300 of the polling stations observed by SEOM is therefore a CCC fiction, that is, a falsehood.

Third, it is clear that the manifest intent of this falsehood about "ballot boxes that did not remain locked and/or sealed at more than 300 of the polling stations observed by SEOM", is intended to give the impression that some chicanery was going on to manipulate the result.

Fourth, the outrageous fact that gives away this falsehood is that there is no reason for ballot boxes to remain locked or sealed at polling stations during voting. Ballot boxes are locked /sealed only after voting, vote counting and results announcement by the presiding officer have been done, in order protect election residue.

MY CONCLUDING COMMENT

There are three final points that are notable.

The first concluding point is that for the record, as indicated upfront in its Preliminary Statement, SEOM was composed of 68 observers, out of whom 50 were deployed to Zimbabwe's 10 provinces, and the remaining 18 were based at the SEOM headquarters at the Rainbow Towers Hotel in Harare.

The second concluding point is that  under section "3. OBSERVATIONS ON ELECTION DAYS (23-24 AUGUST  2023)", the SEOM Preliminary Statement recorded the following about SEOM's observation of the voting process at 172 polling stations:

"On the Election Days, the SADC Electoral Observation Mission  observed the voting process in 10 Provinces of the Republic of  Zimbabwe. The deployed observer teams covered 172 polling  stations in their respective areas. The political contestants have continued to call for peace during this election period and after. The  SEOM observed the following critical aspects at the 172 polling  stations that we visited."

So, only a total of 172 polling stations were observed by SEOM.

The third concluding point is that CCC and various local, regional and international media associated or sympathetic to CCC have routinely been attributing to SADC falsified SEOM observations or finding or conclusions that are in fact nowhere in SEOM's Preliminary Statement on the recent harmonised general election in Zimbabwe.

The foregoing case in point involving CCC's official spokesperson - Mkwananzi - is only a tip of the iceberg.

It's time that SADC set the record straight to stop the continuing falsehoods which are detrimental to truth telling and risk inflaming misunderstandings and fuelling instability in Zimbabwe and within Sadc!