Back to Index

This article participates on the following special index pages:

Vote recount almost done, says ZEC
The Herald (Zimbabwe)
April 29, 2008

http://allafrica.com/stories/200804290008.html

THE Zimbabwe Electoral Commission says it is concluding the recounting of election results in 23 constituencies and will thereafter invite presidential candidates or their agents to witness verification and collation of the presidential poll results.

The statement comes amid reports that MDC-T has retained two House of Assembly seats in Masvingo Central and Masvingo West constituencies while the Masvingo Senate seat remained in Zanu-PF's hands after the recounting of votes.

ZEC deputy chief elections officer responsible for operations Mr Utloile Silaigwana yesterday said the commission was scheduled to invite presidential candidates or their agents to witness the verification exercise.

"Today we are concluding the recount in the 23 constituencies. Thereafter the commission will invite presidential candidates or their election agents for the verification and collation of the results," he said.

The commission, Mr Silaigwana said, was still compiling results from the 23 constituencies and these would be made public upon completion.

However, ZEC chairperson Justice George Chiweshe told journalists at the weekend that the commission was scheduled to invite the four presidential candidates who participated in last month's poll to the verification and collation exercise.

Justice Chiweshe would, however, not reveal exactly when the announcement would be made.

"The process of feeding the recounted statistics into our systems has already begun. We trust that by Monday April 28, this process will have been concluded," he said.

"Immediately thereafter, the returning officer (chief elections officer) will invite the four presidential candidates or their agents to a verification and collation exercise, leading to the announcement of the results of the presidential election."

Justice Chiweshe said the chief elections officer and the candidates had agreed that each party would collate its own figures.

The statistics would then be compared at the end of the verification process.

He said several factors had hampered the announcement of the result and cited transport and communication challenges coupled with the recounting in the 23 constituencies.

In Masvingo Central, Mr Jeffreyson Chitando of MDC-T won the recount after he polled 4 908 votes against Cde Edmond Mhere of Zanu-PF, who managed 4 791 votes, according to final results displayed at the Masvingo Civic Centre, the venue of the recounting.

In Masvingo West constituency, Mr Tichiona Mharadza of MDC-T retained his seat after he polled 4 513 votes against Cde Jabulani Mbetu of Zanu-PF who polled 4 122 votes, while independent candidate Retired Major Kudzai Mbudzi came third with 917 votes.

Among other results that were displayed were the Senate vote recount in Masvingo Central where Cde Maina Mandava of Zanu-PF retained her seat with 4 552 votes while MDC-T's Mr Alois Chaimiti came second with 4 178 votes.

Masvingo provincial elections officer, Mr Zex Pudurai, said the vote recounting process had been completed in all the nine constituencies in Masvingo and ended without incident.

He attributed the delay in completing the vote recounting to minor arguments among representatives of political parties and dismissed reports that some of the ballot boxes were found open or to have been tampered with.

"We have completed the recounting exercise in all the constituencies in Masvingo, but we have not yet managed to get final results from other constituencies and the delay in the recounting process was purely over small arguments, but the process went on quite well," said Mr Pudurai.

Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.

TOP