An African mayoral candidate has pleaded guilty to electoral fraud charges on the day he was set to go to trial for trying to rig an Adelaide council election.
Zimbabwean immigrant Jaison Midzi, 44, from Seacombe Gardens, was arrested in July last year for providing fake ballot papers while running for Mayor in the City of Marion in 2022.
On Monday he pleaded guilty to 10 counts of dishonestly exercise a vote at an election or poll under the Local Governments Act 1999, and another 16 counts were withdrawn, The Advertiser reported, despite maintaining his innocence for the past year.
A day before polling in November 2022 the Electoral Commission of South Australia (ECSA) informed Marion Council candidates that it was investigating 490 returned declaration envelopes suspected of being submitted by the same people, and said it took action to “ensure the integrity of the election”.
The ECSA also investigated voting scams in West Torrens, and in the City of Adelaide’s Central Ward that led to that election being declared void in April after a court found Chinese councillor Jing Li was elected as a result of “illegal practices” related to postal ballots involving foreign students. Li has not been accused of wrongdoing.
Midzi, a former Citizen of the Year nominee, told reporters outside court not to “misinform” the public, and said he would comment further on the case after he was sentenced next month. He faces a maximum penalty of one year in jail or a $5,000 fine for each charge.
He also ran as an independent candidate in the seat of Gibson in the South Australian state election in March 2022, was elected Chairperson of the South Australia Zimbabwe Association in 2018, and ran as a City of Marion councillor in 2018.
Midzi has made regular pro-diversity posts on social media, often weighs in on Zimbabwean and African politics, writing on X: “One Africa is what we want. The borders came from your greedy Europeans.”
During the 2018 election he made a campaign video with a music group called the Diversity Music Collective, which included him dancing in front of the City of Marion council chambers and singing the lyrics “thank you all for trusting me”.
Header image: Left, Jaison Midzi during the 2022 campaign. Right, a campaign poster (Facebook).
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