A political analyst, John Makumbe, said the move was frustrating young people from actively participating in the forthcoming general elections and he believed that the RG’s office was being manipulated by politicians with sinister motives.
This comes at a time when Tobaiwa Mudede, the RG, exposed his links to Zanu (PF) by registering to attend the forthcoming Second All-Stakeholders’ Conference to deliberate on the new constitutional draft.
“The decision to send the youths away is questionable. It feels like the RG’s office is now being used to sabotage potential voters instead of facilitating their registration. It’s a ploy by Zanu (PF) to discourage the youths from participating in the upcoming elections because they know that the youths will never vote for them. Other political parties should take the matter to court,” he said.
A youth pressure group, Youth Forum, said that the process was suspicious because individuals between 18-35 were the majority of potential voters, but are the least visible on the voter’s list.
“The tendency by officials from the Registrar General’s office to frustrate potential voters cannot be tolerated. Elections are a fundamental building block for democracy and an important process in the governance of any country,” said a Youth Forum representative.
The Zimbabwean spoke to some people who were turned away from the Registrar General’s Market Square offices.
“Youth Forum encouraged me to register as a voter; I brought my ID and proof of residence in the form of a water bill and a written statement from my father that I was a resident at the house. However, when I produced these documents we were told that they were not enough and they wanted us to produce more proof in the form of either a hospital bill or an account statement from one of the large stores like Edgars or Topics,” said a woman only identified as Nancy.
Another youth said: “ We were turned away for bringing affidavits as proof of residence which legally speaking are much better than a written letter.”
However, Zanu (PF) spokesperson Rugare Gumbo dismissed the allegations saying, “We are the winning party and MDC formations will come up with all sorts of excuses because they will never win these elections”.
Post published in: News