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Referendum results to be posted at polling stations
Women's Institute for Leadership Development
March 15, 2013

Counting of votes for Referendum set for Saturday would be done at polling stations immediately after voting closes and the results will be displayed outside each polling station, Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) acting chairperson Mrs Joyce Kazembe said yesterday.

ZEC started deploying polling officers to different polling stations countrywide on Thursday and also outlined the Code of Conduct to be followed by observers ahead of the Referendum. Briefing journalists, observers and stakeholders in Harare on ZEC's preparedness to conduct the Referendum, Mrs Kazembe said the set up at all the polling stations would be complete by tomorrow. She said the number of polling stations had been increased from 9 449 to 9 456 after identifying new areas that needed to be covered. "According to the Commission's Referendum schedule, deployment started Thursday countrywide and polling stations are expected to have been set by Friday 15 March and ready to receive voters on Saturday," said Mrs Kazembe.

Electoral materials such as indelible ink, ballot papers and ballot boxes have already been dispatched to all provinces under tight security. Bulawayo has been allocated 700 000 ballot papers by ZEC ahead of the Referendum which is two days away. The city's population is 655 675 people according to preliminary results of last year's census.

The electoral body printed 12 million ballot papers which ZEC says should be enough for the country's 10 provinces. Members of the public who are aged 18 and above are eligible to vote in the Referendum.

Harare was allocated 1 749 000 ballot papers, Manicaland 1 447 000, Mashonaland Central 912 000 while Mashonaland East was allocated 1 153 000 ballot papers. Mashonaland West will get 1 500 000 ballot papers, Masvingo 1 328 000, Matabeleland North 873 000 while Matabeleland South and Midlands will receive 714 000 and 1 624 000 respectively.

Mrs Kazembe said provincial, district and constituency command centres had been established, while the national command centre would be located at the Harare International Conference Centre. She said counting of ballots would be done at each polling station and results posted outside soon after but the overall outcome would be announced within five days by the Chief Elections Officer. "After this, the polling station returns will be transmitted to the National Command Centre via the ward, constituency, district and provincial command centres," said Mrs Kazembe. "Once the counting and transmission process has been completed, the Chief Elections Officer will then declare the results of the Referendum."

Mrs Kazembe said they were still waiting for Treasury to release funds to pay outstanding bills, which include polling officers' allowances. Finance Minister, Tendai Biti this week said Treasury released $31,5 million to ZEC for the referendum, but Mrs Kazembe said the electoral body had received only $26 million. She said ZEC would not slash its budget further as it has many outstanding bills to settle.

"Our account received $26 million and probably the other money Hon. Biti mentioned recently is still on its way but we cannot reduce the budget further,” she said. "We need money to cover the allowances for the 56 736 polling officers countrywide and we have set the allowances at the very minimum rate.

In Bulawayo polling officers completed their training on Tuesday at Milton Junior, Eveline and Townsend High schools and reported for duty at the polling stations yesterday.

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