The Zimbabwean can reveal that the voters’ roll, which is being made ready by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) working with the discredited Registrar General, has many ghost voters with some registered at non-existent addresses, others still included but who passed away, and yet others said to be residing where they have never set foot.
MDC (Tsvangirai) director of elections, Ian Makone, confirmed that the opposition’s own investigations have proved this.
The voter registration process conducted last year by the Mugabe regime was marred by controversy, with allegations of more concentration within perceived Zanu (PF) strongholds, prejudicing urban centres that have consistently voted against the ruling party over the past eight years since the formation of the MDC.
The issue of the voters’ roll is one of the sticking points constantly being raised by the opposition at the talks with Zanu (PF) that were hoped to prepare an environment for a free and fair election.
ZEC denied in a statement the allegations of a shambolic voters roll. “The process of preparing the voters roll is being done transparently and these allegations are not true,” it said.
The Zimbabwean in October visited the Registrar General’s Harare District offices at Market Square in Harare and established that prospective voters were subjected to a long and irritating process, resulting in them spending up to four days without success. Yet Zanu (PF) supporters who produced letters from their leaders were given preferential treatment. – Itai Dzamara
* Starting next week, as part of our coverage of the run-up to the elections, we shall be publishing the lists of names of people identified as being dead or dubiously registered as voters.
Post published in: News