When is an election free and fair?

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I was interested to read that several ANC Youth League officials have flown to Russia to monitor the controversial referendum being held to legitimise the "annexation" of the Ukrainian territory that Putin’s army is occupying.
The referendum has been discredited in advance by most of the world as a sham, but this hasn’t deterred the ANC’s intrepid task team from acting as “international observers”.
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I was interested to read that several ANC Youth League officials have flown to Russia to monitor the controversial referendum being held to legitimise the "annexation" of the Ukrainian territory that Putin’s army is occupying.

The referendum has been discredited in advance by most of the world as a sham, but this hasn’t deterred the ANC’s intrepid task team from acting as “international observers”.

The question many people will ask themselves is, under whose “credible independent auspices”, and with what mandate, is their work being carried out, and who is paying their subsistence costs? It would be one thing to have gone out to Ukraine under their own steam; but if they had gone out at the invitation of the Russian government with all expenses met, then that would be another thing – which will underpin accusations that the ANC is lending credibility to the polls.

Nevertheless, I look forward to reading their eventual report, because I once found myself in a similar situation, monitoring an election that had been largely already discounted by the world at large.

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Nevertheless, I look forward to reading their eventual report, because I once found myself in a similar situation, monitoring an election that had been largely already discounted by the world at large.
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The vote I had been tasked to report on was the April 1979 election called by Rhodesia’s white prime minister, Ian Smith. And the body that required me to travel to Rhodesia was the South African Institute of International Affairs, sister organisation of the highly respected Chatham House Institute of International Affairs in London. All my expenses were met by the Institute.

The brief was simple. As an observer, my purpose was to establish through first-hand observation whether the elections were indeed “free and fair”. I was especially asked to look out for “inhibiting factors” like riots, intimidation or continuing military activity and guerrilla attacks, which might improperly influence voters and thereby discredit the outcome: to establish, in other words, whether it was at all possible to hold a credible election in an atmosphere of war, such as you find in Ukraine today.

The background to this poll, known popularly as the “Muzorewa election”, is already being lost in the mists of time. But, essentially, what had happened was this: in 1965, Ian Smith and his settler government adopted a Unilateral Declaration of Independence, or UDI. The statement announced that Rhodesia, a British territory, self-governing since 1923, now regarded itself as an independent sovereign state.

It was the first breakaway by a British colony since the United States Declaration of Independence 200 years before. But sadly for Ian Smith, King George was no longer on the throne, and Britain and the entire commonwealth deemed this rather eccentric UDI illegal, and immediately imposed sanctions on Rhodesia.

An inevitable civil war then ensued, involving Smith’s lot and the Chimurenga (freedom struggle) fighters of Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe, who were generously supplied with arms and advisors by North Korea.

The war ramped up in 1974/5 when the Portuguese abandoned Mozambique. This opened the way for Mugabe’s guerrilla attacks across the border into Rhodesia. Their arsenal included lethal SAM-7 surface-to-air missiles, and, in September 1978, the Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army used one of these missiles to bring down a Rhodesian airliner.

This was a turning point in the war, and attitudes polarised on both sides when it emerged that the guerrillas had converged on the crash site and murdered injured passengers who had survived the crash. The guerrillas now also knew that they had the means to defeat Ian Smith, and so did Rhodesia’s big neighbour, South Africa. Something had to give, and it did.

South Africa’s prime minister, John Vorster, now presented Ian Smith with an ultimatum. Smith must enter into talks with Rhodesia’s black majority. The irony, that South Africa itself was not yet ready to open talks with its own black majority, escaped nobody.

Smith chose Bishop Abel Muzorewa and another moderate politician, Ndabaningi Sithole, to form an interim government as a prelude to sharing power between blacks and whites. The “terrorist” revolutionaries – Mugabe and Nkomo – were excluded from this set-up, which meant it was more or less doomed to failure. The stated function of the interim government was to bring about a ceasefire and create a climate conducive to the holding of free and fair elections inclusive of black voters.

This, then, was the political topography I was going to be exploring, notebook and binoculars in hand, so to speak, in company with a few dozen fellow observers.

The election was duly called, and the Rhodesian Air Force put at my disposal a light spotter plane that could seemingly land on any surface, flown by a dashing, very young pilot, who sported the obligatory dashing cravat.

Autumn was in the air as I clambered into the co-pilot’s seat early one morning. A chilly wind rocked the wings. A perfectly ordinary Cessna trundled past with a machine gun mounted in the open door – a very makeshift affair typical of the Rhodesian war. The soldiers all wore floppy hats, shorts and trainers. We taxied to the runway and lifted off, wingtips scraping the trees, in a tight turn to avoid potential ground fire and SAM missiles, and headed south.

When your airspeed is 160 kilometres an hour at an altitude of 20 feet over the dense Rhodesian bush, it concentrates the mind. The ground is a blur; thatch huts flash past; startled faces look up, open-mouthed, and are gone in an instant. It is all immensely exhilarating, and impossible to resist the allure of a small plane’s control panel – the flickering oil gauges, the altimeter (showing nought) and the horizon bar.

Our first destination was a polling station near a remote African hamlet, which we reached 15 minutes later. Flaps down, a trial run over the dirt runway to scare away wild game, and then the pilot smacked down the plane in 100 yards, with the propeller throwing up dust and pebbles.

He unclipped his seatbelt. “Out! Out!” he ordered crisply, as we rolled to a stop.

A small armoured vehicle bounced up, and Rhodesian Light Infantry soldiers scrambled out and dropped to the ground, facing outwards, rifles at the ready. “Go! Go! Go!” they yelled, and I was bundled into the vehicle, modified with homemade blast-deflecting steel plates.

Ten minutes later, we arrived at a small clearing in the bush. The perimeter of this clearing was well defended with two light machine guns. There was one entrance, consisting of a gate festooned with barbed wire. A few posters of the main candidates, Sithole and Bishop Muzorewa, were posted up here and there, and a couple of election ushers stood listlessly around. There was no sign of any voters. Some vultures circled high overhead.

But then, as if on cue, an old induna, a venerable man wearing a shapeless hat, shuffled into view from the bush. Has he been provided for my benefit? I think it most probable. He approaches the gate cautiously. A soldier steps out and frisks him, checks his ID card and escorts him through the gate to the tent.

“What happens now?” I asked the election usher standing close by.

“We first dye his fingers with invisible ink to make sure they don’t vote more than once,” he explained.

The old man was then led to a table, given a ballot paper and “helped” to make a cross when he appeared confused.

I later learned that Zanu guerrillas were wise to the invisible ink, and had acquired simple handheld ultraviolet scanners with which to check the hands of villagers. Down towards the Matopos Hills, where Rhodes is buried, whole families had apparently been gunned down simply because a single relative had been found to have voted.

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The usher said, “Okay, Mr Observer (my designated handle), you’ve seen a free vote; now let’s get back to the plane.” We shook hands, the same bumpy ride in the armoured vehicle followed, and as I clambered into the cockpit of the little plane, its engine already ticking over, I heard a hell of a bang. The vehicle had just triggered a mine on the same route I’d taken a minute earlier. We must have just missed it. 
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The usher said, “Okay, Mr Observer (my designated handle), you’ve seen a free vote; now let’s get back to the plane.” We shook hands, the same bumpy ride in the armoured vehicle followed, and as I clambered into the cockpit of the little plane, its engine already ticking over, I heard a hell of a bang. The vehicle had just triggered a mine on the same route I’d taken a minute earlier. We must have just missed it. 

My young pilot shoved the throttle wide open. Over the roar of the engine, he shouted, "We may take lead from the ground, but the seats have heavy metal protection. Don’t worry." I reached down and felt the rim of my own seat. He was right – a steel plate half an inch thick. More than enough to stop an AK-47 round.

As I looked back at the rapidly receding debris and rising column of smoke, I reflected that I could not in all honesty give the election a completely clean bill of health, especially from the vantage point of my own experience. And, in due course, the Institute of International Affairs published my report to that effect. A landmine was clearly an “inhibiting factor” to a free vote – pretty intimidating stuff. I strongly doubted whether any more indunas would be making their way to the voting booth that day. In the days that followed, it became clear that the Bush War was itself the biggest inhibiting factor to a free vote. Numerous examples were at hand, all being retailed by the other observers as well.

But then again, when was there ever a time, with elections taking place in so many countries emerging from civil war, when one could say with certainty that the circumstances on the ground were conducive to a free vote? With hindsight, even that long-gone Muzorewa election was small beer, compared, say, with other much more recent elections and plebiscites, for example, in Iraq in 2016 or, for that matter, this so-called referendum in Ukraine today, where you take your life into your hands if you venture outside, let alone in the direction of a polling booth. Unless, of course, your absence from the booth has been noticed. A careful note is being made of who has voted and who has not, since voters have to produce their passports, according to a member of the ANC monitor squad. Best practice, apparently.

Not too long after the Muzorewa election, there was another election, the Mugabe poll, and that election, too, was problematic in terms of clear voter intimidation. And it carries on – even as I write these words, we are seeing contested election results in Angola and Kenya, both countries with a potential for serious upheaval if the ballot outcomes are not accepted eventually.

The Russians are already hailing the mere presence of the ANC observers as justifying the referendum in occupied Ukraine. According to South African press reports (1), the Russian state-owned news agency RIA Novosti quoted Khulekani Mondli Skosana, chairperson of the ANC Youth League’s international relations subcommittee, as saying that the residents of the four occupied provinces in Ukraine had a right to hold the referendums.

"People should have the right to self-determination. They have the right to vote. This applies not only to the regions in which we are located, but to the whole world. We support legitimate elections and condemn any attempt to sabotage such democratic processes," Skhosana was quoted as saying.

"Democracy is, first of all, the right of people to vote, to choose their path, and this should be done for the people and done by the people," he told reporters in Simferopol, which Russia regards as the capital of the "Republic" of Crimea, which it annexed by force from Ukraine in 2014.

Stella Mondlane, speaker of the Matlosana (Klerksdorp) municipality, was also quoted by the official Russian news agency Tass as calling the referendums "a project of historical scale", adding that people who for a long time had been deprived of the right to choose, had now received the opportunity to reunite with the country (Russia) which they had always been part of.

Mondlane also told Tass that the referendums were going well. "I see that the organisation is going pretty smoothly. There is a queue, but it is advancing; everything is calm. People fill out ballots, vote, make lists. I think that the organisation is at a high level."

She said she was monitoring voting at several polling stations. She said, however, that she was surprised that the referendums did not have voter lists assigned to a specific territory, and instead voters had their passports to show where they were from.

"I think we can then adapt that to ourselves as best practice," Tass quoted her as saying. Tass also quoted Venus Lorato Blennies, chairperson of a regional branch of the ANC Youth League, as saying, "About 80% of South Africans support the residents of Donbas, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in their desire to unite with Russia. My country generally adheres to freedom of expression, the ability to take part in what people want to participate in. Therefore, public opinion is to give the people the right to vote in choosing what they want to get," she said.

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All these ANC observers sound enthusiastic about what they are seeing. One cannot doubt their sincerity. But I am reminded that at the end of my own series of nerve-shattering hops across the Rhodesian bush, visiting various balloting stations during the Muzorewa election, I needed a well-deserved beer and made my way to the Meikles Hotel’s Long Bar.
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All these ANC observers sound enthusiastic about what they are seeing. One cannot doubt their sincerity. But I am reminded that at the end of my own series of nerve-shattering hops across the Rhodesian bush, visiting various balloting stations during the Muzorewa election, I needed a well-deserved beer and made my way to the Meikles Hotel’s Long Bar.

Here, in the gloom of the famous bar room, was the glowering figure of the late Ken Owen, sinking a beer. One of South Africa’s best-known and most widely respected journalists for his trenchant reporting, he had just returned from his own tour of inspection for his newspaper.

"Well, are you onside?" he asked. 

"You mean, give the election a clean bill of health?"

"Yes. Exactly. It’s getting tight here for journalists," Ken said. He signalled for another beer. "The word is that Flowers (the then head of Rhodesian Intelligence) is only going to accredit press from now on who are ’onside’.”

“And –?” I asked. “Are you going to be onside?”

Ken said, "It’s not a free election, and I’ll report as much. I don’t expect you’ll see me in Meikles again soon."

And I didn’t. I gave slightly more credit than he did to the election supervisors. I thought they had done a good job, under the circumstances. It was a good try. But it could never have been called a free election under the circumstances of war; no matter how well-intended, it was a doomed effort, a pyrrhic victory for Muzorewa.

And so it will be for Putin. No doubt, much will soon be made of the referendum result in Ukraine’s occupied provinces. But the decision is pre-ordained, and we all know it; and unless the final report of the ANC observers satisfies the tick-box requirements of international electoral standards and is published by a reputable body – and we know who paid for their trip – then it will almost certainly be ignored in much of the world, and they will be dismissed as having been “onside”.

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But it’s a reflective moment. One can’t help contrasting the Ukraine referendum with South Africa’s own first democratic election, which was scrupulously conducted in terms of international expectations.
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But it’s a reflective moment. One can’t help contrasting the Ukraine referendum with South Africa’s own first democratic election, which was scrupulously conducted in terms of international expectations. Observers and monitors were everywhere to be seen, clipboards in hand, and the outcome was unequivocally free and fair. Nelson Mandela and the entire ANC expected nothing else and would have been up in arms at any suggestion of unfair play, and journalists from abroad didn’t have to demonstrate that they were ’onside’ in order to qualify for travel visas.

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Are we witnessing a sea change all these years later, where the ANC Youth League is on the verge of condoning an election that is anything but free and fair, and which has more than a whiff of the circumstances of the Muzorewa election about it? It certainly looks that way. It doesn’t augur well for the integrity of future elections in South Africa if that is the case.
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Are we witnessing a sea change all these years later, where the ANC Youth League is on the verge of condoning an election that is anything but free and fair, and which has more than a whiff of the circumstances of the Muzorewa election about it? It certainly looks that way. It doesn’t augur well for the integrity of future elections in South Africa if that is the case.

 

1) Daily Maverick, 25 September, “ANC Youth League lends credibility to sham Moscow referendum in Ukraine”, by Peter Fabricius

 

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