ELECTION watchdogs have called on political stakeholders to protest over the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec)’s alleged reluctance to release an electronic copy of the voters roll for inspection ahead of this year’s general elections.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa is yet to proclaim election dates, but has hinted it could be between July and August this year.
The opposition MDC party has filed a court application calling on Zec to release the electronic voters roll. The matter is still pending.
In line with section 21 of the Electoral Act, a copy of the voters roll should be made available to those who request it upon payment of the prescribed fee.
Zimbabwe Election Advocacy Trust executive director Ignatious Sadziwa said political parties should protest to force Zec to release the voters roll.
“The voters roll issue has been cited as one of the vices disadvantaging the opposition in previous plebiscites and repeating the same mistakes will again put the credibility of elections in question,” Sadziwa said.
“We are now drawing closer to elections and the voters roll is still not yet available. Serious and bona fide political parties must simply boycott the plebiscite in protest. The elections won’t be free and fair.”
Election Resource Centre’s legal and advocacy officer, Takunda Tsunga said: “The voters roll is fundamentally the most important document to verify the credibility of any election. No election can ever be deemed credible where stakeholders don’t have access to the roll.
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“Zec must avail not only the roll to be used for the election but the voters roll to be used for the delimitation process.”
Political analyst Rejoice Ngwenya weighed in saying political players need to lobby the Southern African Development Community to intervene in the country’s electoral processes.
“It is inconceivable that we get to elections without a voters roll. I know that Zec will pretend to have released it in ‘time of nomination court,’ but if there is any reason to boycott an election, it is this issue. A series of national protests, litigation and regional Sadc partners should do the trick,” Ngwenya said.
Zec deputy chairperson Rodney Simukai Kiwa yesterday said the commission was seized with the cleaning up of the voters roll.
“This involves running all entries into the Automated Fingerprint Identification System to weed out duplicates as well as removal of deceased voters,” Kiwa said in a written response.
“After the cleaning exercise has been completed, the voters roll for the mobile voter registration exercise is compiled and laid out for inspection by the public.
“The inspection of the voters roll is also a way of ensuring that details of registrants were captured correctly before the final roll is produced for elections.”
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