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Harare Bureau
THE African Union has endorsed Zimbabwe’s electoral system after it appointed Zimbabwe Electoral Commission chairperson Justice Rita Makarau to lead the continental body’s election observer mission to Rwandan parliamentary elections held early this week.

The appointment of Justice Makarau to lead the AU observer mission in the Monday elections fly in the face of the MDC-T and its Western allies, the European Union and the United States, who had sought to discredit Zimbabwe’s electoral system in the wake of the resounding election victory by Zanu-PF in the July 31 harmonised elections.

The MDC-T and its allies are trying to influence the world into believing that Justice Makarau and her other commissioners at Zec are incompetent after they were irked by the ruling party’s massive win in the elections.

The AU election observer mission to Rwanda comprised 30 experienced observers drawn from the Pan-African Parliament, African Ambassadors/Permanent Representatives to the African Union in Addis Ababa, African Election Management Bodies and Civil Society Organisations in Africa.

The observers arrived in Rwanda on 9 September and most of them would remain until today.
The Mission is assisted by a group of experts from the African Union Commission, the Pan-African Parliament (PAP) and the Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa (EISA).

In an interview soon after she touched down at Harare International Airport from Kigali yesterday, Justice Makarau said she was humbled by the confidence shown in her and Zec by the AU.

“It is a proud moment for me and Zimbabwe to lead a team of observers from the African Union,” she said. “I really feel quite honoured to represent my country.”

Justice Makarau said the new system learnt from Rwanda was the obligation imposed by the law on polling officers before an election.
“Polling officers take oath of loyalty to the country before an election,” she said. “They swear that they will treat every candidate equally. I thought it was a good practice.”

While in Rwanda, Justice Makarau addressed the media in Kigali emphasising the continental body’s desire to see the conduct of a free and fair election.

“We are here to make sure that the election is free and fair and we expect Rwandans to come out in big numbers and vote,” she was quoted by the media in Rwanda as saying during a press conference.

As part of her activities, Justice Makarau interacted with relevant stakeholders in Rwanda, including government authorities, the Electoral Commission, political parties and civil society organisations.

She also led the AU mission in observing all the stages of the electoral process, including campaigning, voting, counting and result tabulation.

Justice Makarau used her experience which saw Zimbabwe successfully holding its harmonised elections on 31 July which were certified as free, fair and credible by Sadc and the AU, among other progressive institutions.

Observers commended the appointment of Justice Makarau by the AU, saying it showed the continental body’s confidence in Zimbabwe’s head of the electoral body.

Midlands State University lecturer Dr Nhamo Mhiripiri said Justice Makarau was qualified to lead the AU mission. “She has the qualities and she is a learned person as far as the elections are concerned,” he said. “She successfully ran elections which made us to have the new government, so her system works and other countries would want to tap from that.”

Veteran politician Mrs Margaret Dongo said Justice Makarau built a good record by handling the Zimbabwean election according to the Constitution.

“It’s because of the 2013 elections which have left a record not only in Africa, but internationally,” she said. “This shows that Zimbabwe is capable of holding peaceful elections whose system is emulated by others.

“Rwanda recognised the important role played by Zec and the smooth running of the Zimbabwean election.”

The MDC-T refused to accept the election results after it lost heavily and claimed the polls were not credible.
Meanwhile, the parliamentary elections in Rwanda handed women an overwhelming majority in Rwanda’s Parliament, an unprecedented 64 percent of the seats in the Chamber of Deputies.

For instance, during the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) primaries at the grassroots it was the party’s unwritten rule for the voters to pick both a man and a woman in keeping with the gender equality principle.

Subsequently, both sexes were practically allocated equal number of seats on the party’s 80-member list of parliamentary candidates, which also included eight from its four coalition partners.

As a result, out of 41 seats that went to the RPF-led coalition during the universal suffrage for the 53 openly contested seats, 20 of them are occupied by women, representing 49 percent.

In the Social Democratic Party (PSD) camp, four out of the seven candidates who made it to Parliament are women, while two out of the five seats won by the Liberal Party went to women.