“Aliens” to vote

The majority of those considered aliens either migrated to Zimbabwe or are descendants of migrants who settled here to work, mainly on farms and mines. The majority are of Zambian and Malawian descent.

The Zimbabwe Citizenship Act was passed in 1984 and amended in 2003 as the Citizenship of Zimbabwe Amendment Act number 12/2003 to prohibit dual citizenship, with the exception of minors who were allowed to have to different passports until they turned 18.

People of alien descent were faced with the option of either renouncing Zimbabwean citizenship or that of their country of origin. However, most of them failed to acquire Zimbabwean citizenship as the process of doing so was very cumbersome.

The Supreme Court and critics of the 2003 amendment insisted that the new law had effectively disenfranchise people who were generally considered to be strong supporters of the MDC and were against the 2000 land reform programme that had displaced a significant number of them.

According to Chapter Three of the draft constitution a person is a Zimbabwean citizen either by birth, descent or registration.

“All Zimbabwean citizens are equally entitled to the rights, privileges and benefits of citizenship and are equally subject to the duties and obligations of citizenship,” says the new COPAC constitution.

Mwonzora said according to this Chapter of the new constitution, current “aliens” will have a chance to register for voting in the coming elections if they were born in Zimbabwe.

“In terms of Chapter Three they have been declared citizens by birth and will be eligible to vote,” he said. “In fact, there is going to be a month dedicated for them to register and they will vote in the forth coming elections,” added Mwonzora.

According to the Registrar General’s office the application of a citizenship takes six months to process.

Section 43 of the draft constitution provides that a person born in Zimbabwe of parents from a country which became a member of SADC according to the 1992 Windhoek Treaty or has been ordinarily resident in Zimbabwe for five years automatically becomes a citizen by birth.

“I have no statistics but I know there are many people born of parents from Malawi and Zambia whose parents came to Zimbabwe during the Federation of Nyasaland in the 50s,” he said.