The old roll has been criticised for containing many anomalies and inaccuracies, including thousands of ghost and deceased voters, wrong allocation of wards and constituencies and incorrect names and personal details. The opposition and other members of the electorate have accused Zanu (PF) of manipulating the errors to rig elections.
“We have a strong plan to make the new roll look different from the old one, which some citizens are unhappy with. Resources permitting, we want to overhaul the old roll and come up with a completely new one that would be as accurate as possible. We cannot afford to use a disputed roll in coming national elections and we appreciate the need for the new register to look different,” Makarau told The Zimbabwean.
She said it would be difficult to completely ignore the old roll as it could still provide useful data that would be used to compile a new one. “We can be guided by the database relating to the old roll, for instance in cases where we need to understand the sizes of populations in previous national elections. The old roll would give us a sense of numbers,” she added.
Recent reports had quoted her as saying that the law did not allow ZEC to discard the old roll. Makarau, however, said that was in reference to the model of compiling the roll, rather than the register itself.
“In Zimbabwe, the legally provided for model is one of continuous registration of voters, as opposed to periodic models whereby registration happens at specified times only. Since that is what the law says, we cannot abandon continuous registration of voters,” she said.
In Zimbabwe, registration is only stopped just before elections to allow for smooth management of the roll ahead of and during the elections.
Post published in: News