Zim voters lack information

In an interview last week on the side-lines of a voter education module workshop contacted by  the Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) in collaboration with ZEC, the deputy chief elections officer (operations), Utloile Silaigwana, said voters lacked information on issues related to voting, which had affected the contact and outcome of some election results.

The workshop brought together voter educators from ZEC and civil society organisations to build stakeholder capacity in voter education. It covered areas such as why it is important to conduct voter information and civic education on democratic processes.

“We have realised that the electorate needs to be informed. The voters need to be given the information so that they can participate actively in the electoral processes.  It is critical to make sure that the electorate is empowered with knowledge and information so that they know what it means to vote. If the electorate is well informed they will know that it is their constitutional right to vote,” Silaigwana said.

ZESN acting director Ellen Dingani said it was important to conduct a legal framework for civic education in Zimbabwe. “It is very important to develop civic education and voter information programmes and also to design a voter information activity,” she said.

“The major aim of the workshop was to highlight and equip the voter educators on the importance of highlighting and understanding voter information and civic education. We also wanted to make sure that these have been greatly enhanced,” said Dingani.
She urged the participants to fully implement and link what they had learnt from the workshop with good practice in the field.