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Concern over lack of voter education
Emmanuel Mungoshi, The Standard
April 10, 2005

http://www.thestandard.co.zw/read.php?st_id=2152

VOTER apathy, piles of spoilt ballots and an unprecedented number of voters turned away in last month's parliamentary election are a clear indication of lack of voter education before the polls, civic organisations have said.

The organisations said most people were turned away because they tried to vote in the wrong constituencies, some did not have relevant identification documents or their names did not appear on the voters' roll, while others were not legally Zimbabwean citizens.

Former chairman of Electoral Supervisory Commission (ESC), retired Anglican Bishop Peter Hatendi said there was not enough voter education prior to the elections.

"Strictly speaking, the election machinery was in gear only a month before the elections, which is definitely not good enough. I even queried if the commission owned the elections," said Hatendi, who resigned from the ESC citing lack of independence.

The former ESC chairman attributed the low voter turnout to 'credibility gap" between the voters and contesting candidates. Apart from that most Zimbabwe has lost faith in the country's electoral process, which is controlled by civil servants, while other people just assumed they were still on the voters' roll, having voted in previous elections.

"This can be attributed to ignorance. They took it for granted that since they voted last time, there names were still on the voters' roll, which is a sign of lack of voter education," Hatendi said.

His comments were supported by the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Humans Rights (ZLHR), which said the public was not adequately informed about the delimitation of constituencies before the polling day, which resulted in many people going to the wrong polling stations.

"One needs to examine the unacceptably high numbers of spoilt papers to appreciate how the inadequate voter education has affected participation in these elections," explained the lawyers.

The organisation recorded 60 427 spoilt papers and 133 155 voters who were turned away in 10 and six provinces respectively in the just ended parliamentary elections.

"By the time the President promulgated the boundaries there was inadequate opportunity for voters to check the voters' roll and make themselves aware of which constituency they fall in," says the human rights watchdog.

It also noted that the late publication of the list of poling stations generated confusion among the electorate, especially those out of towns and cities.

"The list of polling stations was published on 18 March 2005 - 13 days before the polling day. This is in conflict with section 51 of the Electoral Act (chapter 2:13) which requires that information about polling stations should be provided at least 14 days prior to the polling date," said the ZLHR.

Whilst the inspection of the voters' roll for the March election closed on 4 February 2005, the Zimbabwe Election Commission (ZEC), which in terms of the electoral Act is obliged to supervise the registration and inspection process, was only established two days before the closing date.

As a result, it said, ZEC would not have been able to provide accurate information to voters about the time and places of inspection.

"The failure to hold the voter registration exercise handled by a credible impartial organ in a transparent and accountable manner posed a significant and serious threat to the overall credibility of the electoral process for March 2005.

"This view is supported by the unacceptably high numbers of voters who were turned away in each constituency on the polling day.

"Such a high turn away would not have been experienced if the voter registration and inspection process had been far reaching and efficient," ZLHR said.

Reginald Matchaba-Hove, chairman of the Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN), said there was need for more time to carry out sufficient voter education.

"Our voter education programme began a month before the election, because we were under the cloud of the NGO bill, and that time was not enough to carry out sufficient voter education," said Matchaba-Hove.

ZEC spokesperson Utoile Silaigwana refused to comment saying he was busy.

The ZLHR said, "The reality is that the electorate approached elections without having benefited from voter education. This is undesirable given the one-sided manner in with the public media (both electronic and print) were used to support the status quo and to vilify the opposition or perceived opponents of the ruling party."

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