Today SW Radio Africa focuses on Mudede and his tenure as Registrar General since Zimbabwe’s first post independence election in 1985. Opposition and civil society activists alike have accused him of playing a key role in rigging elections for Mugabe in the over 27 years he has been in charge of the voters roll.
Reacting to Mudede’s defence of the much condemned voters roll, political analyst Pedzisai Ruhanya told SW Radio Africa that “an accused person cannot go to court and acquit him or herself. It is the court or the jury that must acquit an accused person. An electoral thief cannot acquit himself through the ZBC,” he said.
Before presidential elections in 2002 Mudede told a meeting at the International School in Harare that, “he could imagine no circumstances in which he would declare anyone other than Mugabe the winner.” It was only after four court orders that pressure groups were able to see a copy of the ‘shambolic’ voters roll he used.
Last year in June a report by the South African Institute for Race Relations said there were 42,000 people over the age of 100 on the voters roll and that this was an ‘impossible’ number. Some on the roll appeared to be 120 years old, in a country with a life expectancy of 43, according to the World Health Organisation.
The independent Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) also noted that nearly a third of registered voters are dead and described the voters roll as a ‘shambles’ that needs to be overhauled before fresh elections are held. ZESN also want the voters roll in electronic form, rather than the current paper version.
Sources who spoke to SW Radio Africa last year alleged that ZANU PF is secretly removing known MDC-T supporters from the voters roll. The sources, who refused to be named for fear of victimisation, have claimed that chiefs in the rural areas are being coerced into supplying the names of known opposition supporters.
It was claimed the lists being drawn up from this exercise are being forwarded to the Registrar General’s office, who are in turn removing the MDC-T supporters from the voters roll. Mudede, a card carrying member of ZANU PF, is also believed to be related to Mugabe. SW Radio Africa
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