Back to Index

Community outreach meeting
Bulawayo Agenda
February 13, 2013

Traditional leaders and community members gathered at Tsholotsho Centre today to share challenges on the voter registration process. Below are the highlights of their discussions;

• Adults intending to register as voters are being turned away by Tsholotsho Business Centre Registrar Office which is allegedly registering 18 year olds who get Identity cards.
• Traditional leaders are 'refusing' to provide letters as proof of residence to villagers for them to register as voters in fear of victimization by ZANU PF.
• There are only two registration centres which are Tsholotsho Centre and Nkunzi where citizens can register as voters. Nkunzi is 45kms from Tsholotso center which means that villagers have to either sit back or bear the brunt of walking long distances only to be turned away.
• There are widespread reports of most youths abstaining from registering as voters due to disillusionment among villagers that the election result may still be the same-lack of information and faith on tangible changes in the legislation and process.

According to the 2012 Census, Tsholotsho district has a population of 113,895 and two voter registration centres is a barrier to the elderly who can't walk long distances to register to vote. This is also a challenge even to those who do not have sources of transport such as scorch carts. The planned Government-led mobile voter registration has not been rolled despite the 3rd of January, 2013 commencement date having long gone.

Visit the Bulawayo Agenda fact sheet

Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.

TOP