A letter to MDC secretary general Tendai Biti expresses outrage at the MDC's apparent consent to denial of the right to vote to Zimbabweans living abroad, and urges him personally and both MDC formations to veto the bill.

The Justice and Legal Affairs Minister is expected to steer through Parliament a raft of electoral amendments agreed by Zanu (PF) and both MDC formations.

Key among the new proposals would be the release of presidential poll results within five days, barring police from voting booths, and that voters must register to vote and actually vote at one polling site. It also entails full disclosure by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission on the total number of ballots printed, and the ballots distributed to each polling station.

Significantly, postal voting would be limited to officers outside the country on State duty, while polling officers, security officers and any persons involved in running of the election would be permitted to vote within a week before polling.

The millions of Zimbabweans stationed outside the country would once again be disenfranchised.

Jones Musara, a representative of Zimbabweans in the diaspora who calls himself 'governor' has addressed a letter to Biti expressing outrage at “recent reports that the Cabinet, in which you sit as Finance Minister, together with fellow MDC Cabinet members, approved an Electoral Amendment Bill which will ban externalized Zimbabwean from voting - in the process disenfranchising more than five million Zimbabweans who are outside the country."

We have not been able to independently verify the figure of five million – which it much higher than other informed assessments.

"While I understand the financial constraints that our country faces, I would like to think that disenfranchising more than 5 million Zimbabweans is not only inexcusable, but also anti democratic and anti nationalist, for how can a process be called democratic when it disenfranchises half of the population of a country, and how can we build a nation when half of the nation is excluded from voting- itself a core, fundamental avenue for nation building?" Musara's letter says.

"And at this defining moment, the begging question is, 'Why would the MDC, in particular the MDC leadership in Cabinet support and approve an Electoral Amendment Bill which seeks to disenfranchise more than 5 million Zimbabweans from voting and choosing their next new Government? What's going on here?

"On one hand, the MDC says that we are fighting and advocating for electoral reforms, a new voters roll, free and fair elections, democracy and good governance, and yet on the other hand, when the MDC goes to the Cabinet meetings, Parliament and Senate sessions, the MDC votes for Bills and decisions that are directly against what the MDC purports to be fighting for? There is something fundamentally wrong here. Is it an error or blunder by the MDC or is it a mere case of contradictions, confusion and hypocrisy?"

Biti said the diaspora's concerns had been taken into consideration.

"Why wouldn’t we want them to vote? It is Zanu which doesn't want," he said.

Defence minister Emerson Mnangagwa has said the diaspora will not be allowed to vote until Western targeted sanctions on Mugabe and his cronies are lifted.

Analysts say Mugabe could still force the law through using his wide-ranging presidential powers. And, with voting probably just a few months away, the protests may be too late.

But Musara said the MDC must all the same make an effort to block it.

"If it was Zanu (PF) doing all these things, maybe people would understand, because by now, Zanu (PF) vanhu vave kuiziva kuti it has those contradictions, confusions and hypocrisy," he said.

SA President Jacob Zuma, SADC's pointman tasked with ushering in a free and fair ballot, is currently battling an immigration crisis mainly spawned by desperate Zimbabweans fleeing the country to seek opportunities in the neighbouring country.

By The Zimbabwean