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MDC to express voter registration concerns to Electoral Commission
Tichaona Sibanda, SW Radio Africa
August 09, 2007

http://allafrica.com/stories/200708090995.html

The MDC has been granted a 'groundbreaking' meeting with the government controlled Electoral Supervisory Commission, where it is expected they will hand over a dossier of their concerns regarding the current voter registration exercise.

Ian Makone, the MDC director of elections, told Newsreel they would be meeting a delegation from the ESC in Harare on Friday to brief them of numerous problems that have been encountered by people trying to register for the presidential and parliamentary elections.

'This is a meeting where we will be exchanging notes. Of major concern to us are reports we have received and compiled about the inconsistencies involved with the current voter registration exercise. Our aim really is to tell them what we know and wait to hear what they say,' Makone said.

On Thursday we reported that hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans could have failed to register with the mobile voter registration teams after officials avoided certain areas associated with opposition supporters.

MDC legislator Editor Matamisa first raised the issue of the irregularities with her party and claimed on Wednesday that mobile registration teams did not bother to visit her constituency which has close to 10 000 residents who wanted to be added to the voters' roll.

The MDC has however discovered that the problems are not only limited to Kadoma but are countrywide. Analysts believe however that very little response can be expected from the ESC. There have been problems of this magnitude before but the ESC has failed to act on any of them because of their close links with Zanu (PF).

The Zimbabwe Election Support Network recently said the time allocated for the mobile registration exercise was too short. ZESN like all pro-democracy groups in the country have proposed that the exercise be extended to at least four months and called for more public awareness about the on-going exercise. The last day for people to register with the mobile teams is next week Friday.

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