By Potpher Mbulo
Date: 10-03-2011
PVT is an exercise attempted to mirror the official count of all polling stations. PVT is an election observation methodology that is employed for independent verification (or challenge) of election results. It involves observation of the voting and counting of ballots at the polling stations, collection of official polling station results and independent tabulation (totaling or summation) of these results, parallel to election authorities. If the PVT is performed on statistical sample of the polling stations, it is called Quick Count.
In Zimbabwe’s 2008 elections, with the help of the then President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, a concession was arrived at to have PVT. Results at individual polling stations were displayed on the outside of the polling stations. MDC supporters took pictures, often with camera phones, and sent these to a central location (in Johannesburg), where the results were tabulated. PVT showed that Tsvangirai had polled 50.3% of the vote. However the official result still showed Mr Tsvangirai securing the majority vote at 48.6% of the votes thus forcing a runoff election which Mr. Tsvangirai refused to participate and he argued that he had won the election with a 50 plus 1.
Back home in Zambia, during 2008 Presidential By-elections, PVT was held spearhead by FODEP with the help of an American organization in which all the stake holders such as the relevant Zambian NGOs, opposition parties and ruling party worked together. During the counting at the Totaling Center, the official results by ECZ was showing that Sata was leading as most results from the rural areas had not yet come in. PF carders were excited and but there was panic in the MMD. However PVT results were showing that MMD and PF candidates were at par which lead to the then FODEP president Stanley Mhango to announce to the nation that the election at the moment then with most of the results in was a “close tie” and could go either way.
Remember one of the reasons why RB fired Mulongoti. It had to do with PVT. RB must have liked the results of PVT which were favorable. He didn’t like Mike Mulongoti’s close friend Chitala Mbita’s advice that RB should prematurely announce to the nation that he had conceded defeat.
Its unfortunate that some elements within MMD think that PVT can cause anarchy in the management of the elections. What I don’t understand is why these people in MMD are jittery about PVT when in actual fact PVT proved to have worked well for RB as I have shown above. By the way, why condemn the Americans for “meddling” in our affairs when in actual fact the perceived “meddling” validated ECZ final results?
Since most rigging happens during transporting results or ballot boxes to the totaling center, the parallel vote tabulation (PVT) can play a significant role in preventing outright electoral fraud and goes a long way even to help to ascertain the credibility of the elections and not just underpinning prevention of fraud.
Even if we risk the disadvantage that if there is no consensus among stakeholders, PVT would become a source of conflict, the courts are there to adjudicate for how else we will know the validity of an election results and on what basis can they be challenged?
NOTE: During the writing of this note RB’s official position on PVT wasn’t known. But yesterday 15th March, 2011, during inauguration of the new chairperson of the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) justice Ireen Chirwa Mambilimanew chairperson of the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) justice Ireen Chirwa Mambilima, he warned advocates of the parallel vote tabulations (PVT) that anyone that will compute and tabulate results of the forthcoming tripartite elections will be committing a criminal offence Why does RB invite international election observers to monitor an election and deny them PVT which is a great system for observing an election? Doesn’t it defeat the whole purpose of inviting the election observers/monitors? This is tantamount to tying someone’s hands yet subjecting them to a fight in a boxing ring. I can’t invite you to a meal and refuse you to open your mouth when eating.
