ZIM ELECTORAL COMMISSION OFFERED ANYONE WHO WANTS A COPY OF THE VOTERS ROLL WITH PHOTOS, SO WHY IS NELSON CHAMISA GRANDSTANDING

The Statement by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission asking anyone who wants the Voters' Roll with pictures to bring their own Hard Drive and have it downloaded at the ZEC offices

Last week, I advised people in the Nelson Chamisa MDC Alliance of the video secured by authorities in which Nelson is apparently openly discussing sabotaging the election. He is recorded talking about options in the video. One of them is to discredit the elections before they are held, in order to bolster a challenge to the legitimacy of the results immediately after they are announced.

The objective is to force a GNU or a Transitional Government arrangement to include the Alliance. Chamisa is not trusting the assurances given to him by General Chiwenga about the aftermath of the election in the event of his loss.

This explains why even today, Nelson Chamisa went onto his social media platforms to declare that the roll that his Alliance have is a fake one, because it does not include the voters who registered during the verification exercise. Other members of his Alliance are saying it is fake because it does not include the photos of voters.

First things first, then.

Over the weekend, ZEC published a statement saying. although there is no legal requirement at law to provide a voters roll that has voters' pictures on it, they are ready and willing to provide the roll with pictures to anybody who brings their own hard drive to the ZEC offices.

This particular version (with pictures) is in PDF format, according to ZEC. But PDF is so easy to make editable and analysable that it is the same as providing it in Excel format. There is software to readily convert this.

More worrying for authorities is information they already have around why a song and dance is being made about this particular issue.

Sources inform us that they have caught wind of an Alliance Plan to get hold of this voters roll with pictures on it and then pull a Jealous Mawarire. A court case will be launched by a "citizen" protesting at the dishing out of their images to all and sundry in the voters roll. The main argument, based on breach of privacy, would be that ZEC should have told potential voters that if they register, their photo, in addition to other information, will be a free-for-all. The argument asks the question: "Is the Registrar-General's database of National IDs freely available to anyone?" If not, then why is this roll being given out, because once a photo is added, it becomes no different to a National ID Registry and anyone could actually make an ID with the information available.

Apparently, the idea is to launch this lawsuit as close to the election date as possible (Which, we are told, is the reason why no court case around this particular issue has been raised) in order to maximise the chance of stopping the election.

Second, let us look at the issue of the Fake Voters' Roll.

The question being asked is HOW the Alliance know that the Roll they have now is a fake one. How have they established that a document that was never published prior to its distribution is missing something?

ZEC has not confirmed that the Roll the Alliance has excludes people who registered during the verification exercise.

If anything, the official position of ZEC is that the delay in issuing the roll in the first instance was because all of this information, including the later additions from the extension of the registration period had to be collated and checked for errors before being released.

What we know for sure, which the Nelson Chamisa camp is also aware of is that, if they do launch any sort of action related to this alleged dispute, the video that captures Nelson Chamisa talking about stopping this election will flood social media and will be played all over in order, as our sources put it "to protect the integrity of the election".

The Alliance, from all available information, is being misled by its advisers, who should include people who understand strategy. Just as is the case with the Defence Lawyers (don't ask a question the answer to which you don't know), they should know that in high-stakes strategy like they are looking to play at, do not start a process whose conclusion you do not know.

But, as those who have dealt with the Alliance now know: the Alliance and its leaders know everything, can not be told anything. God is in it, therefore, their faith with cancel will cancel all their mistakes.

I am afraid that, at this rate, you are about to see a humiliating embarrassment that no group of grown men and women should willingly subject themselves to like the Alliance is determined to do.

We will revisit this issue in two weeks, as everything will come to a head then.