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Zimbabwe's Elections 2013 - Index of Articles
Electoral Commission fails to release voters’ roll to parties
Nomalanga
Moyo, SW Radio Africa
July 29, 2013
View this article
on the SW Radio Africa website
There is still no sign
of the voters roll from the Electoral Commission, just two days
before Zimbabweans go to the polls Wednesday.
The MDC formations
have raised concern at the electoral body’s failure to ensure
that the voters’ roll was available to them for auditing well
ahead
of the elections.
So far, reports indicate
that the Commission has only managed to release bits and pieces
of the important document, to its provincial offices, and not to
the political parties who have been asking for it.
On Sunday, Nelson Chamisa
of the MDC-T told the Al Jazeera news service that the party still
had not received important election-related information.
“The voters’
roll has not been availed to us, and we don’t know who is
printing the ballot papers. We don’t know where those ballot
papers are being printed,” Chamisa said.
Senator David Coltart,
the Ncube-led MDC legal affairs secretary, said that by failing
to avail the voters’ roll, ZEC was violating the Electoral
Act.
In a statement
that was also posted on Coltart’s Facebook page, the MDC said:
“Section 21(4) of the Electoral
Act states “within a reasonable period of time after the
calling of an election, the Commission shall provide, on payment
of the prescribed fee, to every political party that intends to
contest the election, and to any observer who requests it, one copy
of every voters roll to be used in the election, either in printed
or in electronic form as the party or observer may request.”
“The MDC has repeatedly
asked the ZEC to provide us with a voters roll. Last Friday we wrote
to the ZEC asking for a copy of the roll,” but by weekend,
the party said it was still waiting, with no sign of the document.
The statement further
stated: “A ‘reasonable period of time after the calling
of an election’ means just that. The election was called on
the 13th June and 6 weeks have since elapsed – and yet we
still do not have a copy of the voters roll.”
The party added that
this was “a grossly unreasonable period of time left to study
and use the voters roll.”
“The Commission
Voters rolls are meant to be used by political parties the world
over to analyse who is in particular constituencies so that they
can be spoken to and encouraged to vote. That opportunity is now
denied us.
“Furthermore in
the Zimbabwean context, where rigging has abounded in the past,
it is critically important that parties be given sufficient time
to analyse and audit the voters roll. That right has now been denied
us.”
Both MDC formations have
accused ZEC of conducting a shambolic electoral process –
which observers say has denied many Zimbabweans of the right to
vote, to Zanu-PF’s advantage.
MDC’s elections
directorate official, Abednico Moyo, said the absence of the voters’
roll discredits the electoral process.
Moyo said: “Without
a voters’ roll parties cannot reconcile the number of voters
and the ballot papers supplied by ZEC.
“That in itself
means the process is discredited and therefore the result of such
a process can only be discredited and contestable,” Moyo added.
SW Radio
Africa is Zimbabwe's Independent Voice and broadcasts on Short Wave
4880 KHz in the 60m band.
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