The Private Voluntary Organisation (PVO) Amendment Bill will have far-reaching consequences for Civic Society Organisations (CSOs) that monitor elections as they are likely to fail to carry out their mandate, according to analysts.
Zimbabwe will hold national elections in 2023, while the PVO Bill, which seeks to regulate and control CSOs or Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), was passed in Parliament in December and now awaits Senate approval before President Emmerson Mnangagwa signs it into law.
Despite the majority of citizens opposing the controversial PVO Bill during the country-wide public consultations held by the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Public Service, Labour, and Social Welfare in March, the ruling Zanu PF party, which controls a two-thirds majority in Parliament, approved it.
In an interview with CITE, legal expert, Dr Vusumuzi Sibanda, described the PVO Bill as a “huge blow” because CSOs constitute the majority of organizations that help with election monitoring and observation.
“CSOs make up the majority of organisations that have been very pivotal in trying to defend the rights of individuals in Zimbabwe and a lot of them get funding from international organisations who fund them for their human advocacy and work towards making sure there are free and fair elections,” he said, emphasizing that after the PVO Bill becomes law, support for these CSOs will be viewed as problematic.
“They will not easily get that funding and they will also not get easily registered because they don’t meet the requirements of the PVO Bill and they will be seen as terrorist organisations,”
Dr Sibanda also expressed concern over the passage of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Amendment Bill, 2022, which was included with Patriotic Bill elements targeting anyone judged to be damaging Zimbabwe’s national interests.
“At the end of the day, you are looking at a huge problem for the democracy of Zimbabwe and the ability for people to speak freely. So freedom of speech, conscience and thought will be affected because it means people will be gagged more,” said the legal expert.
He added that activities coordinated easily by CSOs such as the Zimbabwe Election Support Network, will not have a “fair and easy way of receiving financial assistance to deal with their mandate.”
“Even if they do, they will not speak clearly and easily against the government, so the government is really tightening the noose on those people that are dissenting and not in agreement with the government,” Dr Sibanda said.
“So the PVO Bill is one of those likely to get the signature of the president because of the elections that are coming this year. Very few organisations are going to continue in this particular space because the space is being squeezed and tightened to make sure there are no more new organisations going forward.”
Dr Sibanda claimed even the responsible minister who will decide to register the CSOs will receive instructions from the ruling Zanu PF.
“If you are perceived to be speaking against the government then that is going to be over for you,” summed the legal expert.
Another expert, Bernard Magugu, said that the PVO Bill benefited the ruling party, frightened of losing power.
“There is fear in the ruling party, which commands the majority in Parliament. The ruling party knows the situation on the ground, they know people in the country as a whole are in a state of morass in terms of health, education and the economy in general. They know people are unhappy and they fear that people are going to vote them out hence they have enacted the PVO Bill, which awaits the president to sign so that it becomes law,” he explained.
Magugu said once the PVO Bill becomes law, CSOs monitoring elections will be “dwarfed in terms of their monitoring mandate.”
When the PVO Bill becomes law, CSOs monitoring elections will be “dwarfed in terms of their monitoring mandate,” according to Magugu.
“It means somewhere somehow these CSOs are being governed. They are no longer free to criticise whoever will be running the elections be it the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, the state power or machinery composed of the Central Intelligence, the Zimbabwe Republic Police and the army,” he warned.
“I actually see a situation whereby rural areas are going to be cordoned off and the military and will be commanding the war veterans, youth militias so that they instil fear on the electorate and at the end of day, we shall say it is the rigging of the highest order because people will be told who to vote for and the CSOs won’t be able to criticise or expose those anomalies.”
