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Zimbabwe's Elections 2013 - Index of Articles
Mobile
voter registration stutters again as vote buying blossoms
Bulawayo Agenda
June 04, 2013
The Mobile Voter
registration and education exercise, which was scheduled to begin
on Monday June 3, has failed to kick-off amid chaos and lack of
information. Last week the government through the Ministry of Finance,
announced that it had secured US$25 million for the exercise however
media reports indicated a contradiction with ZEC Deputy Chairperson
Joyce Kazembe acknowledging only US$11 million as having been allocated
for the exercise.
Bulawayo Agenda
has been monitoring the process in Matebeleland North and South,
Bulawayo and Midlands provinces through citizen journalists. Preliminary
reports indicate that the process has again experienced a false
start resulting in confusion and chaos. Below is a summary of findings:
Victoria
Falls
An official
who preferred anonymity at the Registrar’s Office in the area
said has not received any official communication from head office
in Harare regarding the exercise. As a result, the process has not
started and there are no prospects of it rolling out any time soon.
Nkayi
The process
has failed to take-off in Nkayi and it is still not clear why. Our
citizen journalist in the area visited the Registrar’s office
and could not get any information on why the mobile voter registration
had not begun.
Binga
Mobile voter
registration and education officers were reportedly stranded at
the business centre owing to lack of transport to ferry them to
centres that have been set-up in the rural areas.
Tsholotsho
The Registrar’s
office had no information on the exercise and they were still awaiting
an instruction from Harare. Currently the office at is the only
available centre.
Gwanda
Training of
registration officers and voter educators began on Tuesday morning
and they will be deployed to various mobile centres on Wednesday.
Plumtree
Training of
registration officers and educators is expected to start on Tuesday
afternoon with Wednesday likely to be the deployment day.
Massive
Vote buying in Plumtree
Confirmed reports
from Bulawayo Agenda’s Community Witnesses are that ZANU PF
has gone on vote
buying spree in Plumtree’s Mangwe Constituency, dishing-out
food hampers to the hungry villagers in the area.
This is not an isolated incident but traceable trend. Last month
our Community Witnesses reported that ZANU PF’s Jonathan Moyo,
Tshilosho North MP, was also distributing food in his constituency.
The media has been awash with reports that Umguza MP, Obert Mfofu
has been doing the same in Matebeleland North.
All these are
clear cases of vote buying as the vulnerable villagers are blackmailed
to vote for certain parties during these gatherings. This is likely
to undermine the credibility of the elections.
Visit the Bulawayo
Agenda fact sheet
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