By Walter Marwizi and Garikai Mafirakureva
In early 2024, we – two journalists from Masvingo province, the south eastern region of Zimbabwe that borders Mozambique – heard rumours that Zanu-PF, the ruling party in Zimbabwe, was recruiting supporters to fraudulently register for the Mozambican presidential elections, to be held later that year.
We were sceptical. The idea that rural foot soldiers of the ruling party could be signing people up in broad daylight to meddle in a neighbouring country’s election seemed too outlandish. But, by April 2024, we had heard too many credible stories from people in our community to ignore.
One morning in April a Zanu-PF supporter – and one of our trusted sources – showed up at the Masvingo Mirror’s offices and tipped one of us, Garikai, off to a voter registration station in nearby Nemanwa.
That same day, Garikai and a team of three from the newsroom spent the afternoon observing the scene at Masvingo Rural District Council offices in Nemanwa where hundreds of people were queuing. The next morning they joined the queue, had their fingerprints and photos taken and each of them left with a glossy, newly printed Mozambican voter identification card.
Last year, an investigative exposé by Lighthouse Reports and Bloomberg raised a red flag over the use of such technologies in Mozambique to fingerprint people, capture their signatures, photograph them and issue them with printed voter ID cards. The story suggested that the technology could be manipulated to help skew the upcoming elections in the ruling party Frelimo’s favour.
On a separate occasion in April, Walter, an editor of ZimTracker, a Zimbabwean fact checking platform, was tipped off about the registration drive. He also went undercover as a Zanu-PF supporter and queued at the Nemanwa to register.
A lady at the gate asked for his name, address and phone number. She told him that he would be invited to Zanu-PF party meetings where he would be told what to do in order to “help Frelimo win the election”.
Once inside, his fingerprints and photograph were taken, and he too left with a newly printed Mozambican voter ID card.
Since then, we have interviewed twenty other Zimbabweans who fraudulently registered to vote in Mozambique’s election. We believe these twenty people represent just the tip of the iceberg of what may be the most brazen case of cross-border electoral interference in Southern African history.
Crossing the line
The alliance between Zanu-PF and Mozambique’s ruling party Frelimo is one of the strongest pacts of political allegiance and cooperation on the African continent, dating back to the days of the liberation struggle in both countries. With the October 2024 election looming, one in which the ruling Frelimo felt threatened by the growth of opposition parties like RENAMO and PODEMOS, it turned to its old ally for support.
Daniel Chapo, Frelimo’s new leader and candidate standing for election, travelled to Harare in June 2024 where he met President Emmerson Mnangagwa and top Zanu-PF officials.
“We know Zanu-PF is experienced in terms of elections,” Chapo said. “We want that campaign spirit in Mozambique.”
But, our reporting suggests that Zanu-PF’s support to its ally entailed much more than mentorship in building “campaign spirit” in Mozambique. That support also appears to have extended into fraudulently registering many supporters to vote in the election.
The opening for this, said a senior Zanu-PF official we interviewed on condition of anonymity, was created by Mozambique’s National Electoral Commission’s (CNE) announcement that 602 polling stations would be set up in countries outside Mozambique to allow for diaspora voters to cast their ballots. Sixty such stations were planned across Zimbabwe, according to news reports.
“This presented us an opportunity … The challenge was to attract as many people to register (as possible),” he said, referring to Zanu-PF’s mission to target Zimbabwean nationals to vote for Frelimo.
This mission is borne out by the testimonies of people on the receiving end of – and participating in – the party’s registration drive in places like Masvingo.
The Zimbabwean “voters” we spoke to
Apart from our own experiences, we spoke to a further twenty Zimbabweans – farmers, vendors, party loyalists and even party workers – who said they registered for – and in some cases voted in – Mozambique’s 2024 general election. None of them hold Mozambican citizenship, according to what they told us. Many of the people we interviewed allowed us to photograph their Mozambican voter ID cards.
Most agreed to speak to us only on condition of anonymity for fear of Zanu-PF retribution.
[PHOTO OF VOTER ID CARDS COLLAGE]
These testimonies paint a picture of the diverse reasons why Zimbabweans from different walks of life headed the party’s call to register for the Mozambican elections.
But, their testimonies also point to a singular and coordinated campaign by Zanu-PF. It was, as one person we spoke to put it, “clearly a party programme”.
In fact, this was not the first time that some of them said they had fraudulently voted for Frelimo in a Mozambican election. For SZ, the mobilisation drive felt routine.
He told us that Zanu-PF had mobilised him and others to vote in the previous Mozambican election. He said that it was his duty to serve the party again.
DM, though Zimbabwean by birth, felt a symbolic connection through their mother’s Mozambican heritage.
“When my colleagues in Zanu PF approached me to participate in the Mozambican elections, I felt it was a chance to help my mother’s country. I didn’t expect anything in return,” he said.
Others saw it as a test of allegiance to Zanu-PF which would benefit them materially. GZ, saw their vote as a way to safeguard their housing.
“I joined those who voted because I saw it as a chance to prove that I’m a loyal cadre and to try and save my house,” they said, referencing their precarious housing situation in a former mining compound.
But, others were more overtly motivated by the promise of economic opportunity, and felt little party loyalty.
EM, a 28-year-old who does gruelling menial labour in Mutare’s banana plantations, had long dreamed of becoming a cross-border trader. But, the steep price of a Zimbabwean passport had kept them from that dream. When they heard that they could get a Mozambican identity card in exchange for voting for Frelimo, they jumped at the opportunity.
“They took my fingerprints and photo and I waited briefly before I got a Mozambican card,” they said.
The card said that she was born in Manica, Mozambique. EM did not mind that it was not true, because now she could travel freely to Mozambique, she thought.
LK told us that they had never been to Mozambique, but also registered due to the promise of free passage to Mozambique to buy goods for resale back in Zimbabwe. So she just voted, she said, hoping that she would be able to become a vendor.
“I’m not Mozambican, and I was not doing it to help Mozambique. I know that Mozambique, especially Frelimo, helped Zimbabwe during the liberation struggle, but that’s not why I voted,” she said.
Similarly, SN was thrilled at the prospect of her voter ID card giving her free passage to buy goods in Mozambique.
GM was also a repeat voter. They recounted how, after voting for Frelimo in 2019, the party organized trips for supporters to shop in Chimoio, the bustling second-hand clothing hub in Mozambique.
“The trip was profitable,” said GM.
“We brought back second-hand clothing for resale. I hoped this time we could go again.”
Voting on the day
While we both registered, only one of us (Garikai) actually cast a ballot on 9 October 2024.
He left the offices early that morning with a photographer on a double mission – to observe and interview people voting at the polling stations set up around Masvingo and to see whether they could actually vote themselves, using their fraudulent identification cards.
At Roger Howman Training Centre in Masvingo, which housed a polling station, they interviewed people outside.
“That is when a Zanu-PF activist who was also an election coordinator came to our vehicle and started throwing stones at us. We filmed her and drove away,” said Garikai.
Later that afternoon they drove to Nemanwa to the same place they had registered to vote in April.
The Mirror’s photographer went in first. He returned within a few minutes to say that he had voted. Then Garikai went in and voted. It was all over in less than half an hour.
“I voted because I wanted to make sure it was possible to vote using those voter IDs,” Garikai said.
Denial from Zanu-PF
The Masvingo Mirror, the paper for which Garikai works, has reported a number of stories about the alleged voter registration fraud perpetrated by Zanu-PF officials in the province.
n compiling these reports, the Mirror approached Zanu-PF spokesperson Chris Mutsvangwa. In November last year he told the paper that all people who voted in Zimbabwe were in fact Mozambicans who had acquired dual citizenship and were being given an opportunity to exercise their political rights.
Approached for comment again this month, Mutsvangwa said that our questions were “no longer necessary”.
“The Mozambican election is over. President Chapo is now recognized by the international community. Recently President Trump even gave him $4.5 billion. So, it won’t matter now whether they had dual citizenship or not. Why do you always look in the rear view mirror? Try to look in front of you,” said Mutsvangwa angrily before dropping the call.
Zanu-PF Director of Information Farai Marapira denied any involvement in the alleged voter export scheme.
“I think the people you interviewed misunderstood your questions because there is no way a Zimbabwean can vote in a Mozambican election,” he said, speaking on the phone earlier this month.
A Frelimo spokesperson had not responded to a request for comment by the time of publication. However, in a WhatsApp exchange, the spokesperson said, “I’m assuring you its full fake. Frelimo still has the more widely range of Mozambican people voting and supporting our party and consequently our President.”
Frelimo’s contested victory
The allegations have thrown an even longer shadow on Daniel Chapo and Frelimo’s election victory. The result was already heavily contested and led to widespread unrest and violence in the country. Opposition party PODEMOS alleged widespread irregularities, including voter intimidation, ballot stuffing, and inflated voter rolls. The European Union Election Observation Mission raised similar red flags.
This investigation was produced by the SA | AJP, a project of the Henry Nxumalo Foundation funded by the European Union. The article does not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union. It first appeared in The Continent.
