Proof that Zimbabwe’s President, Mugabe buys elections: What's new?

Mugabe, right, celebrating an election win in 1980

Damning top-secret intelligence documents that expose Robert Mugabe’s plans to rig the forthcoming election in Zimbabwe and crush his political rivals have been handed to The Mail on Sunday.

The dossier reveals in astonishing detail how Mugabe is plotting to steal millions of votes with massive and systematic ballot-rigging combined with widespread intimidation by party thugs.

His tactics, along with details of massive funding from named British, Chinese and African backers, are disclosed in highly confidential papers written for his closest aides.

They were obtained from intelligence sources who risked their lives to expose the covert campaign to keep 89-year-old Mugabe and his brutal military cabal in power.

The documents explain how ‘unfavourable voting outcomes’ for the ruling Zanu-PF party will be ‘countered’ for a multi-million-pound fee to an Israeli company that has been helping the dictator for a decade. 

They also show how Mugabe’s desperate bid to retain power in the nation he has ravaged during 33 years of repressive misrule is being aided by the Chinese government, fellow African dictators and secretive diamond mining firms.

The documents, prepared for the head of Zimbabwe’s highly feared Central Intelligence Organisation and the Joint Operational Command (JOC), the body that oversees state security, contain a number of alarming disclosures.

• Nikuv International Projects, an Israeli firm, is being paid $13 million (£8.5 million) to manipulate voter registration, counter ‘unfavourable’ results and ‘neutralise’ opposition votes.
• The Chinese government is helping with ballot rigging, advising on voter intimidation and providing jamming equipment to silence independent radio stations.
• Already, 45,534 youths have been trained and deployed across the country in armed militia to ‘stem resistance’, with another 7,343 undergoing training and ‘mass  reorientation classes’ to be ready three days before polling.
• Security forces are adamant that six Zanu-PF moderates ‘must be STOPPED’ from standing. One of the named politicians, Edward Chindori-Chininga, died last month in a suspicious car crash. His family say it was an assassination.
• Funding for the covert campaign is coming from controversial diamond companies, the presidents of two African countries and prominent business figures from Britain, China and Zimbabwe.
• Millions of dollars are being directed towards leaders of southern African countries providing independent election monitors to ‘drum up support for poll credibility before, during and after elections’.

What is really new about all this. How can a single man be in power continually for 33 years if not by rigging, especially in a democratic State. What we should be hearing is how to remove him from power. Shikena