Harare residents rush to register for elections

Officials from the Registrar General’s office were busy handing out new birth certificates, national identity papers and registering voters at some of the centres visited by The Zimbabwean.

“It has been extremely busy as you can see. It has been like this since we started,” an official from the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission told The Zimbabwean in Sunningdale.

The prospective voters welcomed the new voter registration but bemoaned the lack of clarity on the registration period and how this would affect them.

Registrar General Tobaiwa Mudede this week told the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Defence and Home Affairs that he took the decision to limit the registration teams to three days per ward because of limited funds

Residents who spoke to The Zimbabwean in Hatcliffe and Sunningdale said they wanted to register quickly before the registration teams moved on.

“If I fail to register now I don’t how I would be able to do so once they have gone to other areas. The other issue is that I was given only one day off from work so if they send me back home for whatever reason I won’t be able to get another day off during the days they say they would be here,” one man from the Green Forest area near Hatcliffe said.

The new constitution provides for a registration period of 30 days but Mudede said those who were supposed to avail the funds would be the ones in violation of the provision.

One of the registration officials at Hatcliffe Community Hall told The Zimbabwean that his team would be in the area for five days only.

The residents said they were happy that there were fewer problems than during the previous registration conducted between April 29 and May 19.

“At least this time there are very few people who are being turned away compared to last time,” a f Hatcliffe resident who had just registered told The Zimbabwean. However there were still some problems with some residents being turned away.

“If you have a letter from your landlord they make you sign an affidavit but if you only have your ID without any other documents they turn away,” said one woman in Hatcliffe.

There were three women who were turned away but refused to talk to the press.

“Things did not go well for us in there,” one of them said.

When asked what had happened she said “Ask the police they know. I don’t want to talk to anybody right now” as she stormed off.

In Sunningdale the picture was different with residents saying they were not experiencing any problems.

“I did not encounter any problems,” said one 22 year old woman from Sunnigdale who said she would be participating in an election for the first time.