The partisan Registrar General Tobaiwa Mudede insists that that the voters register is clean even though it contains names of 132,540 people more than 90 years-old, a total of 16,828 names on the roll were for people born on January 1, 1901.
The list of potential voters used in Zimbabwe’s previous 2008 parliamentary and presidential elections contained “at least” 2 million fictitious voters.
ZESN says the Registrar General should have nothing to do with the cleaning of the voters register for the next poll, the head of the Harare-based institute said.
"We believe the Registrar General must be relieved of responsibility for the establishment of a new voters roll," ZESN chairman Tinoziva Bere said. "Voter registration must be conducted by ZEC."
He said the voters register was in its current shambolic state because of the current RG. "They need to be taken out completely," he said.
One of the reasons for the establishment of the ZEC was to remove the execution of the elections from the hands of civil servants and place it in the hands of a professional body independent of government control. This was meant to do away with the recurring accusations of partisanship and polls manipulation on the part of the Registrar-General's Office.
In past elections the Registrar-General's Office undertook voter registration, compiled the voters roll and supplied staff for the ZEC. These activities were roundly slammed by civil society actors, including ZESN.
The proposal is likely to hit a brick wall given that Zanu (PF) is already baying for the dismissal of the current head of the ZEC, Justice Simpson Mutambanengwe, on allegations that he sympathises with the MDC.
Post published in: News