BY PAIDAMOYO MAZULU ZIMBABWE holds general elections in 2023 — two years away — but subtle manoeuvres to rig the polls are already underway as the opposition is distracted by internal fights. Elections since the turn of the millenium — 2000 — have been disputed with the opposition alleging political violence, systematic manipulation of the voter’s roll, coercion and in some instances the electoral management body, Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec), accused of blatant bias. The opposition has further accused State-controlled media of biased coverage during the electioneering period. Frequently, opposition rallies and activities are buried deep in the papers or news bulletins and generally spiced with opinions. Matters have been made worse by the complicit of regional and continental observer missions — Sadc and AU — under the African solidarity of seeing no evil, hearing no evil and speaking no evil. The opposition ends up looking like crybabies with the European Union and United States observer missions appearing to be seeking to perpetuate colonial hegemony when they highlight electoral deficiencies. The ruling party, Zanu PF, has over time learnt to be more sophisticated than crude in manipulating elections. It has employed tactics such as token electoral law reforms, politically correct public statements and in some cases window-dressing national dialogue. However, the most subtle weapon of stealing an election is gerrymandering and it is deployed well ahead of elections. Gerrymandering is the art of manipulating electoral districts or constituencies using delimitation data. Delimitation or setting boundaries of constituencies is based on national census data. It takes place once a decade just after a national census. Zimbabwe last held a national census in 2012 and the next is due in 2022, but this is less than a year before the general elections. The time to use the census data would be limited, hence efforts to bring the census forward. ZimStat, the national statistics agency, started pre-census mapping in 2020 and is scheduled to complete the exercise a year before delimitation. As things stand, 68% of Zimbabwe’s population is in rural areas and the remaining 32% in urban and peri-urban areas. It does not seem like the ratio will change despite evident urban sprawls across the country. The central government has in the last six months been pushing local authorities such as the City of Harare and Chitungwiza Municipality to demolish all illegal settlements. Demolitions have taken place in high-density suburbs such as Budiriro and Chitungwiza and as many as 15 000 houses will be demolished in 2021 since court orders for the same have been obtained from the High Court. It is a fact that the houses are illegal. It is a fact that they should be demolished. However, legal positivism is half the story. Successive Zanu PF governments were aware of the sprawling and illegal houses in urban centres since 2000. However, for political expediency the government allowed them to sprout. Zanu PF does not forget and keeps ha