The run up to the elections scheduled for July 31, has seen serious inconsistencies emerging, triggering an outcry from contestants and civil society organisations.
On Friday, the Zimbabwe Election Support Network published a statement to the effect that there were serious inconsistencies in the voters’ roll and noted a serious under-registration of voters especially in the urban wards.
“ZESN has found that there are about 750,000 missing urban voters and at least 400,000 missing young voters from the ’ roll,” says the statement.
Civil society organisations say the voter registration process was marred by irregularities ranging from a lack of publicity to long distances that aspiring voters had to walk – disenfranchising a lot of potential voters.
The special voting by all civil servants who will be on duty on July 31 was done on Sunday and Monday and was disturbed by serious logistical problems that saw thousands of police officers failing to vote on the first day.
Zimbabwe has failed to make meaningful progress regarding the recommendations made by the SADC Electoral Observation Mission to the Constitutional Referendum held in March.
The SEOM recommended the establishment of a mechanism through which funds for elections could be made available in good time and for the update of the voters’ roll and continuous voter education.
MDC-T spokesperson Douglas Mwonzora told The Zimbabwean that Zimbabwe had failed as far as the holding of elections according to international standards is concerned.
“Zimbabwe has already failed to reach international standards. The public media space is closed to other political parties. The military and the intelligence are involved in the electoral process on the side of Zanu (PF) and this has compromised the quality of the election.
The Director of the Election Resource Centre, Tawanda Chimhini, said “The conduct of free, fair, credible and transparent elections is supposed to be a process and not an event. It’s about Zimbabwe being able to follow international practices. Unfortunately, Zimbabwe has fallen short according to international practices. Voter education should have started long back to give people enough time to understand the process. There is nowhere in the world that a credible election can be conducted on the basis of a voters’ roll we have in Zimbabwe,” said Chimhini.
Political analyst, Rejoice Ngwenya said: “The first test that we have failed is to live up to expectations on the issue of voter registration. Secondly, international observers are only being invited from countries that are friendly to Zanu (PF). So already, without knocking the ball, we have conceded two penalties.
“There is nothing that can be done to make this election free and fair. The outcome of the election can never be perfect because the process has been tainted by Zanu (PF) shenanigans.”
Post published in: News