Joice Munemo
The arrest of thirty-nine (39) activists from the Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN), on 23 August 2023, foiled a plot to subvert the 23 August 2023 Presidential elections.
Reports from an insider based in an East African country (name supplied), are that ZESN, in partnership with two organisations from outside the African continent (names supplied), had set up a secret office in that country, which was called the “Zimbabwe Election Subversion Office” (ZESO). There were three nationals of a foreign country (name given) and two Zimbabweans (names supplied) manning the ZESO.
According to the insider, ZESO, which operated clandestinely, was established during the run-up to the harmonized general elections as a Command Centre for the two foreign organisations collaborating with ZESN, in order to receive Presidential election results and V11 forms from Zimbabwe. Their plot was to tamper with the incoming electronic results and V11 forms in order to create fake election results before the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) had the opportunity to announce the genuine election results. ZESO’s pre-conceived plan was to declare that the losing candidate, Nelson Chamisa of the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC), had won. The fake V11s and results were supposed to flood WhatsApp groups and other social media platforms soon after the closing of polls.
The ZESO project had created 25,000 avatars (fake social media accounts) to distribute the cooked-up V11 forms and results and to bombard Zimbabwe’s social media and WhatsApp groups. Concurrently, the ZESO project had also engaged a renowned criminal hacking syndicate (name supplied) in a bid to throttle genuine social media accounts of ZEC and other Government platforms to ensure that their fake news dominates the news.
The insider reported that the three foreign nationals left the East African country soon after the arrest of their activists in Harare as their subversive plot had been foiled. Several boxes of computer equipment were also seen being removed from the premises. A Wide-Area-Network (WAN) diagram of the clandestine satellite internet link with Harare and database servers, was shown to this paper. Meanwhile, the two Zimbabweans fled to other bases in the sub-region.
An eyewitness in the East African country told this paper that the secret ZESO office “was very suspicious and there was a lot of movement in and out by guys who spoke in foreign accents, especially on Wednesday (23 August).”
The insider highlighted that “The foiling of the ZESO plot averted a possible catastrophic interference in Zimbabwe’s electoral processes that would have corrupted and muzzled the democratic will of the people of Zimbabwe. They had plotted an Armageddon but, thank God, vakanyangira yaona.”
