Harare west local authority by-election

1.0.        INTRODUCTION

On Saturday 7th November 2015, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) conducted a Local Authority by-election in ward 16 of Harare West to fill vacancies which resulted from the death of the then sitting councilor Lancelot Mudavanhu who passed on the 21^st of July 2015 .

Guided by Constitution of Zimbabwe as well as the Electoral Act (Chapter 2.13) which provides the legal framework and in reference to the SADC Principles and Guidelines on the Conduct of Democratic Elections, the Election Resource Centre (ERC) tracked and observed the management and administration of the ward 16 Local Authority by-election to ascertain compliance to the electoral laws, measure administrative efficacy as well as assess the electoral environment and to detect  possible electoral best and malpractice or maladministration and provide the report to ZEC and stakeholders.

Consistently, the ERC tracked pre-electoral, electoral and the immediate post-electoral periods.The election was won by an independent candidate who polled 265 votes while the Zanu PF candidate got 233 votes and 4 were rejected votes. The ERC deployed two accredited observers to assess the Election Day processes. The accredited observers were mobile and observed at 14 polling centers.

2.0.        ELECTION DAY FINDINGS

2.1.        Administrative Framework

The conduct of the poll was well organized and professional, an indication that ZEC was fully prepared logistically. Polling officers seemed to have been well trained and were quite cooperative on Election Day.

ZEC also managed to print and distribute enough materials, including ballot papers, for all 14 polling stations.

The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), established 14 polling stations in the ward. Generally the commission was ready for the election as all polling centers were well resourced, opened on time, followed the same procedures however of concern was the high number of security personnel on the day with an average of 4 police officers at each of the polling stations.

Elections are a civilian process hence the presence of police should be minimized to reflect their role of maintaining peace and order. In addition, the law provides for police officer to be stationed outside the polling station and only be called inside by the presiding officer, at all the times during voting, police officers were inside the polling station.

While security during polling was properly maintained, however the ERC observed that the conduct of police personnel needs to be defined, police details aiding in the polling process and periodically requesting election statistics and reporting these to unknown destinations.

2.2.        Legal Framework

The unreformed legal framework for elections with its unconstitutional provisions remained problematic during the 7^th November 2015 by-election. By way of example, there still exists confusion in terms of how the postal vote is operationalized especially for those that will be doing election work on polling. Whilst the recently gazetted General Laws Amendment Bill attempts to clarify the issue of postal votes, the recently held by-elections could not witness any postal voting since the regulations are yet to be finalized through an amendment by Parliament of Zimbabwe.

 2.3 Voter Registration and Voters Roll

Voter registration is a process by which potential voters are registered, ZEC is mandated by law to register voters. ZEC used a Ward Based voters roll compiled for 2013 Harmonised elections thus did not register new voters, the voters roll for the ward has 14 622 and of these only 502 voted plus less than 20 who were turned away either because they were not registered, they appeared in the wrong ward or they did not provide required identification. At all polling centres observed, the table below shows a summary;

4.2.2 Polling Agents Presence

The two candidates provided Election Agents at all the 14 voting centres and at the Ward Collation/ Command Centre.

4.3 Voter Turnout

TOTAL REGISTERED VOTERS

 Voting was largely characterized by low voter turnout. This could be attributed to the fact that the electoral management body, though conducted voter education, their work should be consistent with Marondera By-elections and the June 16^th by –elections where they managed to conduct 10 day voter registration. Lack of interest in the by-election could be attributed to inadequate voter education and the broader lack of interest on governance issues among citizens.

5.0 Results for the Ward 16 Harare Municipality

The results were collated at Haig Park Primary School which was the Ward Command Centre. The Ward Elections Officer announced the final result and declared Manjoro Peter Clever duly elected Councillor for Ward 16 Harare Municipality. All Chief Elections Agents signed the form v11 and a copy was given to each of the representatives with one pasted outside the command centre.

 

6.0   Conclusion and Recommendations

Despite the polling day having been comparatively peaceful, ERC noted extremely low turnout on polling day. The think tank urges the election management body and all the stakeholder to explore avenues of motivating citizens to engage in electoral and democratic processes. The ERC further notes the inadequacy of voter education evidenced in the significant number of turned away voters, including voters turning up in the wrong ward, and not bringing the required identity documents:

• The role of the police, which should be confined to providing order and security during polling was not properly maintained and defined with reports of police details aiding in the polling process and periodically requesting election statistics and reporting these to unknown institutions.
• The electoral environment though conducive for citizens to make free choice of their preferred candidates however awareness and education were lacking components
• The by-elections generally suffered from low voter enthusiasm leading to a low voter turnout.
• ZEC preceded some by-elections by registration of voters and thus failure to conduct registration in the ward is a clear breach of its constitutional mandate