C/o Padmore Kufa43 Kalanchoe Approach, Seville Grove WA 6112, Australia
Contact Telephone Number +61 414 477 659
Email: zimdiasporavoteaussienz@gmail.com
3 April 2024
Your Excellency
The President
Comrade Emmerson Mnangagwa
Government of Zimbabwe
Dear President Mnangagwa,
The Zimbabwe Diaspora Vote Initiative closely followed the Russian elections, monitoring how the Russian Government handled diaspora voting in that election. We are impressed to know that an unprecedented number of Russians living in the Diaspora participated in the plebiscite, something that we had also hoped would happen in the Zimbabwean 2023 elections following your 2018 promise. Despite the promise, your administration does not seem to have treated the diaspora vote with the urgency that it deserves. We hope you will use your last term of office to fulfil your 2018 promise and leave a lasting legacy as the President who brought the diaspora vote to Zimbabwe, which your predecessor, the late Comrade Mugabe failed 37 years after independence.
Diaspora vote is becoming the norm for all progressive countries. All of Zimbabwe’s neighbours except for Zambia which is at advanced stages of implementing the diaspora vote, already allow their citizens living abroad their democratic right to vote in elections in their countries. These neighbours are Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia and South Africa. Democratic Republic of Congo citizens living abroad voted in their country’s elections in 2023, while Forty-two percent of Senegalese citizens based in the Diaspora were able to vote in the 2024 Senegalese elections as more African countries adopt the diaspora vote.
We hope that Government of Zimbabwe will draw lessons from what is happening elsewhere in the Southern African Development Community region, in Africa and internationally regarding diaspora voting. We are of the view that any electoral reforms to be implemented in Zimbabwe should include diaspora voting. The Zimbabwe Diaspora Vote Initiative is ready to make input into electoral reforms that should lead to diaspora voting.
Yours sincerely,
Rosewiter Mangiroza
Chair
Zimbabwe Diaspora Vote Initiative
References
1. Russian Diaspora citizens voting 2014 ‘Unprecedented’ Number of Russians Voted Abroad, Says MFA – The Moscow Times
2. President Mnangagwa’s 2018 diaspora promise Mnangagwa on Possibilities of Zimbabwe Diaspora Vote, Irreversible Land Reforms (voazimbabwe.com)
3. First time vote for Democratic Republic of Congo diasporabased citizens Congolese diaspora in Paris embraces historic opportunity to vote from abroad | Africanews
4. Senegalese diaspora in 42 percent voter turnout in March 2024 elections Senegales diaspora 42% voter turnout less than expected in Burkina Faso – WADR