Excellent Tips from Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe To PNG Prime Minister Peter O’Neill To Win The 2017 Elections And Beyond



by MATHEW TOMIO

Zimbabwean leader President Robert Mugabe has successfully stayed in power for nearly 36 years and is now 92 years old.   He is widely made fun of inside Zimbabwe for his senility and vanity.   The Zimbabwean economy by 2009 was only half the size of what it was when President Mugabe first took over in 1980.  At that time, Zimbabwe was sub-Saharan Africa’s second richest country after South Africa.  The economy collapsed completely in 2008, with the Zimbabwean dollar losing value that year at a rate of 231 million percent.  Prices sometimes doubled on a daily basis and today Zimbabweans buy everything using foreign currency.  The country has sanctions against it by the European Union and the United States, including a travel ban on Mugabe and his inner circle.
Many people rightfully question how does President Mugabe hold onto power?   Much of it is due to what is called in Africa “preponderance of incumbency”.  Only in Zambia (twice) have incumbent leaders ever lost to opposition challengers.  This is because African leaders have developed the ability to control the state institutions, which they then apply to retain power for their political parties and themselves.
President Mugabe enjoys support in rural areas for his land reform policies, as well as his power base in the police, army and courts. Most importantly of all, President Mugabe holds regular elections for the outside world to see while behind the scenes employs electoral fraud at almost every level.  
President Mugabe’s success in staying in power is very bit available for our Prime Minister Peter O’Neill to consider adopting here in PNG.   Just as President Mugabe ruined the Zimbabwean economy, our Prime Minister is free to do the same to the PNG economy yet stay in power.   Our Prime Minister has already shown talent in being able to take over the police and army, and effectively can neutralize the PNG court system when they rule against him.    He has more control over PNG state institutions than any Prime Minister in history, which opens the door for Prime Minister O’Neill to apply that power to keep control of the nation.

The more Honourable O’Neill carefully studies President Mugabe’s strategies and tactics, the greater might be his ability to remain indefinitely in power in Papua New Guinea.   Prime Minister O’Neill can use the 2017 elections as his declaration of popularity by the PNG people for his rule and that of his People’s National Congress Party, the PNC.  

Similar to how our Prime Minister is now restructuring his Black Swan security service to be a secret paramilitary service with security staff trained by elite Israeli former military personnel, President Mugabe started his absolute power rule over Zimbawe in this way.   Soon after independence, President  Mugabe was already at work.   He sat about creating his ZANU–PF party to be the governing party of Zimbabwe in a one party state setup.   To assist in this, he recruited North Koreans to train a special security force he set up, called the Fifth Brigade.  Mugabe himself noted that he had created this force and would deploy it to 'reorient the people'

President Mugabe was able to use his Fifth Brigade private security force to deal with internal dissidents protesting against his rule, specifically his former allies, the ZAPU party.   Two years after creating the Fifth Brigade in 1982, Mr Mugabe pretended to discover old Russian trucks and weapons held in ZAPU farms supposedly being readied for use to rebel against the government.  Actually the weapons were already known to the government and were broken and unusable.  Nevertheless, Mr Mugabe used this discovery to proclaim that the ZAPU was rebelling against the government and instigated a genocide in Matabeleland against his political rival Joshua Nkomo and Nkomo’s minority Ndebele tribe, resulting in over 20,000 civilian deaths.  Zimbabwean courts later accepted that there was no ZAPU rebellion by acquitting Nokomo allies who were supposedly involved.  

This victory against the opposition allowed Mr Mugabe to rule with near absolute power for more than 20 years.   In December 1987 he had his Parliament declare himself as executive President with no need for elections.  The new Presidential appointment allowed Mr Mugabe to combine the roles of head of state, head of government ,and commander in chief of the armed forces.  He was given powers to dissolve parliament and declare martial law.

Our PNG Prime Minister, Peter O’Neill has been successful in working towards the same goals but in a slower, more subtle manner.   Black Swan is slowly becoming our Prime Minister’s very own special security Fifth Brigade style force.   His control of the PNG Constabulary through political appointments has been effective in bringing the police force under his control.  Even more effective has been our Prime Minister’s subtle takeover of the PNGDF, using his long time accomplice dating back to NPF days, Defence Minister Fabian Pok.  Honourables O’Neill and Pok have so far successfully hidden PNGDF recruitment details from the people, including the number of new recruits coming from the Prime Ministers and the Defence Minister’s own electorates.    However, President Mugabe would approve of all these strategies as being even more refined and hard to detect than the more upfront and violent strategies that Mr Mugabe was forced to use to gain nearly absolute power in Zimbabwe.   

Because PNG has no dominant tribes, Prime Minister O’Neill would very unlikely be forced into the tribal wars that Mr Mugabe was forced into.  Only Engans as a language group could possibly challenge Prime Minister O’Neill’s authority and our Prime Minister has effectively gotten Engans under his control, especially through his ally Engan Governor Peter Ipatas, but also another Engan MP, Foreign Minister Rimbink Pato, another ally of the Prime Minister’s going back to NPF days nearly 20 years ago.
To get control over Zimbabwe’s universities and university students, President Mugabe has been the Chancellor of the University of Zimbabwe since Parliament passed the University of Zimbabwe Amendment Bill in November 1990.   He is also Chancellor of all state Universities including Bindura University, National University of Science and Technology, Midlands State University, Chinhoyi University of Science and Technology, Lupane State University, Harare Institute of Technology, Great Zimbabwe University and Gwanda State University.   After the experience of the 2016 boycotts in Papua New Guinea, our Prime Minister Peter O’Neill might well consider having his Parliament repeal the current university legislation and design new legislation in which he assumes full power over the universities.   
Robert Mugabe lost the first election after black rule takeover of the former British colony of Rhodesia.   The first election, in April 1079, resulted in the election of Abel Muzorewa, a bishop in the United Methodist Church, to become Zimbabwe’s first black leader.
Less than a year later, in February 1980, another election was held. This time, Robert Mugabe won over two thirds of the vote, after a campaign experiencing much intimidation, outright violence, and Mr Mugabe's threat to resurrect the civil war if he lost.   
After the genocide against his rival tribe and opposition in the early to mid 1980s and his declaration in 1987 as the absolute powerful leader of Zimbabwe by his Parliament, President Mugabe was re-elected in 1990 and 1996, and in 2002.  In every case he survived numerous claims of widespread vote-rigging and intimidation.   He was re-elected again in 2008 and 2013 in elections where election fraud and intimidation was again reported widely.

Following are descriptions of a number of vote rigging and election fraud techniques that have been effectively used by Robert Mugabe over the years to stay in power.   Our own Prime Minister, Peter O’Neill, has either adopted some of these tactics on his own, or could more extensively deploy some of President Mugabe’s successful tactics.  
Voter roll manipulation:   Although used in past elections, the 2013 manipulation of the voter rolls were especially effective.    The 2013 roll revealed an estimated one million invalid names, including many deceased voters.   It also excluded up to one million real and alive voters, mostly living in urban areas, where President Mugabe’s support is weakest.  The rigging was done by the Zimbabwean Electoral Commission under the control of President Mugabe.
Here in PNG, the voter roll manipulation strategy was tested out prior to the 2012 election.   Although there was widespread voter complaints, in the end the election was held anyway and the voter roll manipulations were able to have their desired effect.   This tactic could easily be expanded on behalf of PNC candidates for the 2017 election.  
State media bias:   Just as the PNG government owns EM-TV Kumul TV and FM100, the Zimbabwean government owns its set of print and screen media.   The Zimbabwean government owned media ran stories heavy in promoting President Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party.   Our Prime Minister could employ this same tactic in PNG for the 2017 election.  
Value of Violence In Intimidating Voters:   President Mugabe through this security forces, has long intimidated voters, especially in rural areas.   During the 2002 election, urban voters waiting in line to vote were routinely driven away from polling stations with batons and tear gas.  Opposition supporters were routinely abducted and beaten.  Similar violence has occurred in all of Zimbabwe’s elections while President Mugabe has been in power, but the peak development of intimidation occurred during the 2008 election.  
The 2008 election was an unexpected unpleasant surprise for President Mugabe as he lost the election narrowly to the Movement for Democratic Change Party led by Mr Morgan Tsvangirai.   The MDC took 96 seats in parliament compared to only 94 seats won by Zanu-PF.   President Mugabe had government forces immediately crack down on leaders of the opposition party.  Soon afterwards, the Zimbabwe military built 2,000 party compounds across the country to become basis for newly established party militias.   This plan was known as CIBD (“Coersion.  Intimidation.  Beating.  Displacement”).
Because neither President Mugabe nor Opposition Leader Tsvangirai received more than 50% of the vote, a runoff election was held.   President Mugabe put a former security chief loyalist to manage his campaign and the CIBD militias were activated.  By 20 June 2008, the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights recorded 85 deaths in political violence since the first round of voting.   By the time the second-round election was held, more than 80 opposition supporters had been killed, hundreds more were missing, thousands injured, and hundreds of thousands driven from their homes. In addition, at least 100 officials and polling officers of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission were arrested after the first round election.
Thanks to the CIBD campaign, President Mugabe ended up receiving 86% of the vote, while Tsvangiarai received only 9% of the vote.  
President Mugabe has included Opposition members in the violence on occasion.  For example on 11 March 2007, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was arrested and beaten following a prayer meeting. Another party member was killed and other protesters beat up and injured.    President Mugabe did not deny what happened but claimed that "Tsvangirai deserved his beating-up by police because he was not allowed to attend a banned rally"   Peter O’Neill could easily adopt this strategy if the PNG Opposition led by Don Polye ever dared try a protest against our Prime Minister.  The Port Moresby police, under Ben Turi, very effectively beat up peaceful protesters in October 2015 at an educational rally organized by anti corruption activist Mr Noel Anjo.
Violence and intimidation up to now in PNG have mainly occurred in highlands polling places, usually out of site of witnesses.   It is certainly within the realm of possibility for Prime Minister O’Neill to consider using Black Swan security to initiate a PNG version of President Mugabe’s CIBD to reorient voter thinking for either the 2017 or later elections in PNG.    However, even President Mugabe, after the very violent 2008 election, realized that he would lose legitimacy for future elections to be filled with violence.  He thus turned to other tactics that were more cunning and ultimately even more successful than outright violence in winning the 2013 election.   
Value of ignoring complaints of voting fraud:  After the violence of the 2008 election, the 2013 election was much more peaceful.   Independent voting monitors reported widespread irregularities.  Even the government Electoral Commission reported that many voters were either turned away from polling places or received assistance from election officials in how to cast their vote.  President Mugabe brushed aside the complaints and was duly sworn in for another term as President.  
Vote buying:   In the 2008 election campaign, thousands of government employees woke up one day to see large sums of money deposited into their account which did not appear in their pay slips.   Also, many public employees were embedded in ZANU-PF party structures to serve in that campaign.  All this was reported by a Presidential candidate Simba Makoni, but Makoni was never able to achieve justice for his claims.   This elegant form of vote buying certainly could be trialed by PNC in PNG.   Ensuring indirect linkages between the money deposited and who deposited it would give the PNC a strong measure of deniability for vote buying.
Ignoring accusations of election fraud:    Zimbabwe’s elections in the past have been witnessed by international observers who have frequently complained about voter fraud.  Even election monitors from neighbouring ally South Africa in the 2002 Zimbabwean election would not call them free and fair.   President Mugabe has successfully been able to get past these criticisms by ignoring them.    Our Prime Minister Peter O’Neill already has demonstrated this ability with respect to many allegations leveled against him and would assist his election prospects by continuing to ignore rather than reply to any allegations of voter fraud.  
Stacking courts with political allies and ignoring decisions that were unfavourable:   By the 2002 election, President Mugabe had perfected his control over the courts by stacking them with his appointees.   Because of this, for more than a year, the Supreme Court had overturned or blocked almost every high-court ruling in favor of the MDC opposing President Mugabe. On the rare occasion that the Supreme Court has sided with the MDC, President Mugabe ignored the decision, overruling it with a presidential decree.   All this prevents any political party opposing President Mugabe from getting a fair hearing.  
Preventing Opposition and NGO led strikes and protests against the government:    This was nicely handled by President Mugabe before the 2002 election by passing a new security law that made any mass action aimed at "coercing" the government an act of treason, punishable by life in prison. Calling any sort of strike would give the government immediate grounds for wholesale arrests of opposition and civil society leaders, several of whom were already facing treason charges before the 2002 elections.   Our Prime Minister Peter O’Neill created an invaluable first step in this direction by having his Parliament pass the Cybersecurity Act for PNG in which those making defamatory statements against government leaders could receive up to 25 years imprisonment.  If this law works out as intended to silence dissent, Honourable O’Neill could extend it by a general Security Act for PNG that would prevent all protests against the government.  

A wonderful analysis and 7 steps recommendation from President Mugabe’s experiences in being abe to successfully rig the 2013 Zimbabwe election can be found here:
Our Prime Minister Peter O’Neill and his staff can get very valuable tips from that article alone and it is highly recommended reading. 

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