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ZESN against the bid to postpone elections
Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN)
June 24, 2003

The Zimbabwe Election Support Network is wholly against the idea, which came from the Urban Councils’ Association of Zimbabwe (UCAZ) to postpone the urban council elections. As ZESN, we feel that this idea defeats the purpose of democracy in our country.

The urban council elections were due to be held in August this year and according to the terms of the Urban Councils’ Act the local elections are supposed to be held after every four years. They come a nearly a year after the Rural District Council Elections of September 2002 which were won overwhelmingly by the ruling ZANU-PF.

Noting the UCAZ’s concern that there is no money to administer the elections, ZESN calls for the government to make an effort and ensure that these elections take place and acknowledge that democracy is competitive.

ZESN also calls all involved stakeholders in elections to advocate for one electoral independent body that oversees all elections and do away with the idea of councils in this instance funding for their own elections. Every election in Zimbabwe is equally important and funds should be made available for each and every election without failure.

We therefore urge the government to look closely into the issue and centralise all elections on one independent electoral body which will be in charge of ensuring proper administration of every process in any election.

We feel that postponing these elections might give bad precedence taking into consideration that the most urban councillors were elected four years ago and belong to the ruling ZANU PF.

Whilst in terms of section 103(k) of the Urban Councils’ Act, the minister has powers top postpone the elections for one year in order to enable proper administration of the process as ZESN we recommend that the minister should not postpone these elections as this will be perceived as if it is a political gimmick by the ruling party to extend the terms of office for their councillors.

Reflecting back to the year 2000 parliamentary elections and the subsequent by-lections, the MDC won most of the urban elections and it is most likely that the same might happen in the urban council elections.

We re-emphasise again our call for an independent electoral body in Zimbabwe.

For more information:
Ellen Kandororo, Information Officer
Media and Communication Desk
E-mail: ellenk@zesn.org.zw

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