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High number of turned away voters in Chegutu Mayoral Election
Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN)
March 06, 2006

The Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) observed the Chegutu Mayoral election that was held on Saturday 4 March 2006 and noted with concern that an unusually high number of voters were denied their right to vote when they were turned away at the polling stations for various reasons.

A total of 2183 voters or 10.6% of the 20 574 registered voters were turned away. The majority were turned away for being in the wrong wards while hundreds others fell foul of the recently enacted Constitutional Amendment (No. 17) Act that classified them as aliens. Others were turned away after they turned up at polling stations with drivers' licences, which were not admissible as proof of identification in this election. A few of the voters were turned away as they did not appear in the ward voters' roll.

The number of voters turned away was so high that at some polling stations they actually exceeded the number of those who voted. For instance, by 1736 hrs at Chegutu Primary School, although 184 people had voted a staggering 439 had been turned away. Meanwhile at St Francis by 1422hrs 192 voters had been turned away whereas 164 had voted. Other polling centres that had significantly high numbers of voters turned away by 1830hrs are Hartley 2 Primary School and Maketa Shopping Centre that had 235 and 215 respectively.

ZESN, which deployed two mobile observer teams that visited all the polling stations throughout the day, noted that in spite of the fact that all the polling stations were conveniently located and accessible to the electorate the election was marred by a low voter turnout of 27.3% as only 5624 turned up to vote. There was general lack of interest in the election as most people abstained from voting and chose to concentrate on urgent bread and butter issues. This was particularly noticed at Mataka Shopping Centre where residents queued to buy maize meal ignoring the voting process that took place less than twenty metres away. The rains that pounded the town for much of the morning further worsened the situation.

Given the aforementioned problems that have become a common feature in most recent elections, ZESN believes that there is an urgent need for all stakeholders to embark on a rigorous and continuous civic and voter education exercise in preparation for all future elections.

In addition, there is also a need to relax the requirements and simplify the procedures for the renunciation of foreign citizenship in order to allow those affected by recent constitutional amendments to vote. Most affected voters, who have consistently voted since independence, seemed unaware of this new legal requirement. ZESN also believes that the use of a common voters' roll for the mayoral election could also have significantly reduced the final number of voters who were turned away.

ZESN commends the professional conduct of the majority of the electoral officials who were courteous and forthcoming with information. The polling stations were adequately equipped and had all the required voting materials and stationery. ZESN is however concerned that the presiding officer at Chegutu Community Hall polling station prevented one of its observers from observing the counting process.

The network applauds the people of Chegutu for their conduct during the campaign and polling periods which were peaceful except for a single incident in which a suspected MDC supporter assaulted two ZANU PF supporters who were noting down names of people who had just voted. However ZESN hopes that such incidents will not recur in any future elections.

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