Zimbabwe’s deeply divided opposition this week threatened to take the matter to court unless Registrar of Voters Tobaiwa Mudede undertakes in writing to prepare a supplementary roll of all the people omitted from the voter register. A supplementary register would enable the people who have been omitted from the roll to vote in the March 29 poll.
Opposition United People’s Party (UPP) president Dr Daniel Shumba also indicated that he was preparing an urgent High Court chamber application seeking to delay the Nomination Court, expected to sit tomorrow, Friday, because political parties were given little time to field candidates and inspect the voters roll.
Mudede admitted the turnout at the 5,000 centres set up countrywide for voters to inspect the roll had been low and the number of people whose names had been omitted would only be clear at the end of the inspection exercise.
In a snap survey in Harare this week, this newspaper found dozens of voters at the inspection centres angrily arguing with Mudede’s officers after being told that their names were not on the voters’ register.
But Mudede dismissed the charges as unfounded.
“Surely if it was intended that a certain section of the community should be disenfranchised, then why put the voters’ roll to public inspection?” Mudede asked.
Zimbabwe Election Support Network chairman Noel Kututwa said inspection of the roll and registration was low key in rural areas too, because many people did not have money to travel to the registration centres.
“Many failed to register during the mobile voter registration exercise last year,” Kututwa said. He added that many did not know their voting districts because the delimitation report was still inaccessible.
The Combined Harare Residents Association CEO, Barnabas Mangodza, said many urban residents were unable to register because of the restrictive demands for proof of residence.
“Because of Operation Murambatsvina, many people do not have legal proof of where they live,” he said.
Post published in: News