There is concern among the CSOs over the reluctance by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to accredit organisations wishing to engage in voter education ahead of polls scheduled for this year.
Another area of concern is the ongoing voter registration which the CSOs claim has not been adequately publicised and as a result has failed to reach out to many people.
The mobile voter registration process kicked off on 6 May and ended on 19 May.
Last month, Heal Zimbabwe Trust Director, Rashid Mahiya told The Zimbabwean that the police and District and Provincial Administrators were frustrating efforts to educate the electorate by putting stringent requirements for clearance in place.
The Director of the Centre for Community Development, Philip Pasirayi, said that organisations wishing to engage in voter education campaigns were handicapped.
“Not enough has been done to educate the electorate. We are still waiting for the green light from ZEC. We have been told that we are supposed to furnish them with our sources of funding as well as the composition of our board of directors, which has been done.
ZimRights Director, Okay Machisa, said it was regrettable that the electorate was still ignorant. “Even if you look at the mobile voter registration process, it seems it is being done secretly and more centres have been established in the so-called Zanu (PF) strongholds,” he said.
The Chairperson of the Zimbabwe Election Support Network, Solomon Zwana, said there is still a lot of work still to be done as far as efforts on raising awareness among the electorate ahead of elections are concerned. “A lot of it hinges on the need for ZEC to accredit CSOs so that they can conduct voter education,” said Zwana.
The past weeks have seen the arrest of personnel from the Election Resource Centre and the Youth Agenda Trust on accusations of conducting “illegal” voter education campaigns. So far, 24 MDC-T supporters have been arrested on the same charges.
Post published in: News