A FRIGHTENING assault on our democracy is being waged. Finance Minister Tendai Biti has come out suggesting that holding elections will cost us US$200million.

Seeing that there is an average five million voters in Zimbabwe, this figure translates to US$40 per individual voter. Considering that each political constituency is calculated as some 40,000 voters per demarcated area we are looking at expenditure of US$1.6 million per constituency, all for a vote which might very well be negotiated away.

These figures raise a number of questions. US$200 million dollars is not a slight figure at all. How does the minister arrive at this figure? What costs does this monstrous figure cover, especially considering that election agents are ordinarily drawn from civil servants who are already covered by the civil service wage bill? Aside from small allowances for additional work, one does not see them as a prohibitive cost to the election budget. Even as we add election agents drawn from non-state sectors, the cost is hardly much a dent.

So where does the money go? We may very well hear stories about pre-election expenditure. But even these, including the voters roll, are matters already within the existing fiscal allocations. The Registrar General, were the Home Affairs ministers to exercise their oversight properly, should have a reliable record of who has turned 18 and therefore can vote; who is dead and therefore can no longer vote; who is outside the country etc. It would make the task of summing up the roll much easier, and less draining on resources we hardly have.

The flagging of figures serves more as political blackmail than anything else. Not that I agree to elections under the current conditions, but one has to be wary when a “democrat” uses such tactics as a distraction.

Any rational person is bound to query the opportunity costs of holding elections. US$1,6 million for an election in a single constituency is not an amount to joke with. It is enough to transform constituencies, provide seed money for local community income generating programmes, fund schools and clinics.

The list of immediate possibilities is long. It can even be longer should the elections fail to be conclusive, resulting in a negotiated government. And if one is to compare this to the US$40,000 (US$8 million in total) that was budgeted for each constituency under the Constituency Development Fund, the mischief is glaring.

One is reminded of the 2008 request for 3,7 billion CFA Francs in election assistance by the Guinea-Bissau prime minister to the international community. In response, Portugal offered electoral materials: ballots, ballot boxes, ballot booths, and indelible ink. All this represented 75% of the total cost of the elections, and at a cost of 41 million CFA Francs! We do not need to speculate much why the figures were so inflated.

Compare this with India, the world’s largest democracy. It pulled its last election with a budget of under US$300 million. It has more than 700 million voters. Or with Nigeria, the most populous country on the continent. It has budgeted US$500 million for its 2011 elections. Its voting population hovers around 170 million. One wonders what is so special about our elections to make them so expensive.

Zimbabwe is a fairly cheap country compared to Nigeria. The cost of services and labour is way low. Public resources are equally meagre. Our national budget is half that of Lagos, the Nigerian city. We cannot even bring ourselves to comparisons with India. Our net-worth is a minuscule when compared to this emerging giant. So why should the process of choosing who should govern and lead us become so prohibitive?

With all the other criminal onslaughts associated with our electoral processes, one would expect that what is within the control of democrats in this government should reflect a different ethos. An election should not be financially punitive to the electorate.

It is the role of democrats to ensure that democratic processes are as affordable as possible and can pass the moral test when presented against competing interests. Failure to do so strengthens despots.