The report comes as the country prepares for another round of mobile registration as stipulated by the new constitution.
The next exercise, to cover one month, was supposed to kick off on Monday but failed reportedly due to the unavailability of money, with the latest reports indicating that it will commence today (Thursday).
ZESN points out numerous gaps that characterised the first round.
“The just ended mobile voter registration process has been described by various stakeholders as chaotic and unsatisfactory,” said ZESN in its report titled “Mobile Voter Registration Process in Zimbabwe: A Report of the Zimbabwe Election Support Network
The election watchdog is concerned that funding for the exercise was not adequate.
“The process was hampered by inadequate funding. …The amount requested by ZEC to comprehensively roll the process was fully not disbursed by Treasury but an initial amount of $4 million.
“As such ZESN is concerned by the lack of seriousness of the current government to avail adequate resources to both ZEC and the Registrar General to carry out registration and ancillary voter education,” said ZESN.
It added that since voter registration was “a highly sensitive and political issue”, ZEC, the RG’s offices and other stakeholders “should support the process with the necessary resources”.
The report also laments the inadequacy of adequate human resources that offset long queues with applicants failing to be attended to on time.
“The Registrar-General’s office should deploy enough staff to all the wards and further look into the distances prospective voters travel to access the process as it frustrates potential registrants,” said ZESN.
It cited Chikomba, Harare South, Mbire, Shamva North and Mhondoro-Ngezi long as some of the areas that were marked by winding queues.
Voter education and publicity around the registration exercise were poor, says ZESN.Voter Education and Publicity of the Registration centers
“According to ZEC two voter educators were deployed to cover each district which was not adequate to cover the vast wards in both rural and urban areas and considering the distance these educators had to cover,” read the report.
“The publicity should have preceded the registration process however centres were published a week after the process had commenced. Had the centres been well publicised, turnout including also provision of proper,’ it added.
As a result of poor public awareness campaigns, said ZESN, prospective voters were turned away because they failed to bring along the required documents.
The voter registration exercise was also rapped for failing to include relevant stakeholders.
“Apart from engaging the political parties on the process, there was a general feeling that the process was not inclusive and therefore could not tap into the support of the church and the civic society,” said ZESN.
It added: “ZESN encourages (ZEC) to seriously engage the stakeholders in order to lessen the load of stretching the little resources allocated to the process.”
The organisation noted that some political parties interfered with the registration process, bussing in supporters, writing down the names of people who had registered in door-to-door campaigns and selecting people who should vote.
It accused Zanu (PF) of acting in such a manner in Mashonaland East, Bulawayo and Mashonaland West .
At some registration centres, officials did not adhere to the instruction to operate between 7am and 7pm, choosing to work shorter hours, said ZESN, which added that in some cases, voters were not allowed to inspect the voters’ roll.
The process must be re-started in line with the new constitution which stipulates a thirty day period for registration after its enactment; it is our view that the preceding exercise cannot be a substitute for this constitutionally mandated process.
ZESN made several recommendations to ensure the effectiveness of the voter registration outreach campaign, among them establishing legal instruments to facilitate the registration of “aliens”, making full use of affidavits, better voter education and giving greater access to stakeholders, particularly civil society, to the process.
The organisation also recommended that there should be more effective supervision of the process by ZEC and the RG’s office while preliminary roles must provided to enable voters to verify their names.
Below are the ZESN details regarding registration trends during the last exercise.
Table 1: Distribution of Centers Province Number of Centers Population Census Figures Estimated Registered Voters-2013 Registered Voters-2008
Bulawayo 12 655,675 367,178 313,459
Harare and Chitungwiza 25 2,098,199 1,216,955 766,478
Manicaland 49 1,755,000 807,300 709,664
Mashonaland Central 76 1,139,940 547,171 448,477
Mashonaland East 113 1,337,059 641,788 624,630
Mashonaland West 77 1,449,938 710,470 582,989
Masvingo 41 1,486,604 668,972 699,199
Matabeleland North 89 743,871 334,742 345,264
Matabeleland 85 685,046 308,271 342,280
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am very much concerned about why aliens with ID cards return Aliens being told to first change their IDs to Citizen and yet we were told after the signing of the constitution by the president Aliens will be allowed to vote. May someone answer me!!!