Tofa, The Bible and the Quest for Democracy and Democratization in Africasuits them better. This is the most valued- the most sacred right which we
believe, is to liberate the world^14.For years, the people of Zimbabwe have been divested the right to elect
people of their choice on the basis of an uneven political ground. The 29
March 2008 elections marked a watershed in Zimbabwe’s electoral his-
tory. These were the first harmonized elections (they consisted of the
parliamentary, the presidential and the council elections) which were
held following the unanimous passing of the constitutional amendment
number 18 Act by the parliament. The Act stipulates that all these elec-
tions be held together unlike the past in which they were held separately.
Unlike the 2000 parliamentary and the 2002 presidential elections, the
pre-electoral period of the 2008 elections was fairly violence free. The
Church called for the contact of free and fair elections and condemned
the use of violence.
However, it was tainted with some electoral malpractices such as the
monopolization of the state media by the incumbents, irregularities in
voter registration, impartiality of bodies which are responsible for the
contact of elections, politicization of food and other forms of aid, sala-
mandering of constituency boundaries and isolated incidents of political
violence. For the first time in history, ZANU PF lost the majority of the
parliamentarian and council seats to the MDC.
The Electoral Commission (ZEC) did not release results were close to a
month and when the results were released, the MDC was on the lead
had not received the popular vote. The president evoked section 110 (3)
of chapter 2:3 of the Electoral Act which stipulates that “where two or
more candidates for President are nominated, and after a poll taken in
terms of subsection (2) no candidate receives a majority of the total
number of valid votes cast, a second election shall be held within 21 days
after the previous election in accordance with this Act” and declared
Tsvangirai the winner but with less than the required 50 % in order to be
declared the outright winner in Zimbabwe’s first-past- the-post electoral
system. Consequently, a run-off between Tsvangirai and Mugabe was to
be held and the results were announced on 01 May 2008 (a month after
the polling day) following a catcall from sections of the national and the
international community. ZEC announced that Tsvangirai had polled
47,9%, Mugabe polled 43,2% and independent candidates Simba Ma-
(^14) Nzongola Ntalaja, “The State and Democracy in Africa,” in The State and Democracy in
Africa, eds. Nzongola Ntalaja and Margret Lee (Eritrea: World Press Inc, 1997) 82.