JOHANNESBURG - The new chairman of Zimbabwe's electoral commission will oversee his Herculean task to overhaul the country's skewed electoral system from his Namibian base, he told ZimOnline this week.

Former Harare High Court Judge Simpson Mtambanengwe, who sits on the Namibian bench after retiring from his Zimbabwean job in 2004, was last month named by the unity government of President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai as chairman-designate of the new Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC).

"I have accepted the position in principle and I am awaiting further notifications because they are still in the process of finalizing other issues," said Mtambanengwe by phone from the Namibian capital Windhoek. "I shall be working from here because I have a fulltime job but if the need arises needing my attention then we will see."

The new ZEC is part of several commissions including one to oversee the media and another to take charge of human rights issues that are part of reforms that Zimbabwe's power-sharing government must implement to re-shape and democratise the country's politics that has been characterised by violence and gross human rights violations almost from independence from Britain in 1980.

But Mtambanengwe, who replaces a pro-Mugabe former military officer and High Court Judge George Chiweshe as head of Zimbabwe's electoral management authority, faces by far the toughest job running elections in a country where every major vote over the past decade has produced a contested result. Mtambanengwe would not be drawn to disclose details about how he plans to go about democratising Zimbabwe's electoral system that the opposition says gives Mugabe the privilege of being referee and player on the electoral field. "We will see when we get there," was all the judge would say when asked about the task ahead.
Respected in Zimbabwe and in the region after helping reform the Namibian judiciary system after that country's independence in 1990, Mtambanengwe has worked as acting Chief Justice of the Namibian Supreme Court. He also chaired the body that oversaw Namibia's elections held recently. Mtambanengwe briefly returned to the Zimbabwean bench in 2006 to preside over the corruption trial of then Harare High Court Judge Benjamin Paradza who he found guilty and sentenced to three years in jail. However Paradza did not serve the sentence after skipping the country before sentence.
Paradza's lawyers had argued during trial that the charges against their clie

nt were meant to punish him for embarrassing the government after he (Paradza) in 2003 freed an opposition mayor who had been arrested for holding an illegal political meeting. The government denied that the corruption case against Paradza was politically motivated.

Other people lined up to serve with Mtambanengwe on the new electoral commission are two members of the old ZEC Theo Gambe and Joyce Kazembe, who was deputy head of the discredited commission.
Zimbabwe International Trade Fair general manager Daniel Chigaru, University of Zim

babwe law professor Geof Feltoe, a P Makoni and S Ndlovu and Pastor Godwill Shana, who is a former chairman of Transparency International Zimbabwe complete the list of ZEC commissioners. All are yet to be formally appointed to their new jobs. The old Chiweshe-led ZEC is accused by the former opposition MDC of rigging the March 2008 election to block outright victory by Tsvangirai against Mugabe in a presidential ballot that the MDC-T leader won, but with fewer votes than required to avoid a second round poll.
Mugabe's supporters then unleashed a ruthless campaign of violence to force Tsvangirai to withdraw from the second round presidential poll that analysts had strongly tipped the former trade unionist to win. The two rivals were later forced by the regional SADC alliance and the African Union to agree to form a government of national unity that includes
Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara, who heads the smaller formation of the MDC.

By Zimonline