Tsvangirai showed journalists one of the ‘dumped’ ballots.
The development, if confirmed, would throw credibility of the election process in doubt.
Tsvangirai said the electoral process was militarised hence dumping of some ballots in dust bins.
“This is one of several ballots found in dust bins at ZEC Command Centre, situated at the Harare International Conference Centre. It is disturbing to note that only ballots in favour of MDC-T and Tsvangirai were finding their way into rubbish bins,” said Tsvangirai.
He said drivers from the Central Mechanical Equipment Department, assigned to transport special voting ballots from polling centres around the country to ZEC Command Centre were replaced with army drivers.
Tsvangirai said some election technical duties were moved from the Registrar General’s office to the army headquarters, KGV1 Barracks.
“Such behaviour by some of our GNU partners remains worrisome and would lead to a contested election outcome, if ZEC does not take corrective measures now,” said Tsvangirai.
ZEC was described as an institution probably armed with the will to run free and fair elections, but lacking the capacity.
Tsvangirai ‘bemoaned’ helping to appoint the ZEC commission, which the nation believed would carry out its duties without interference from the military.
He said if ZEC failed to handle 70, 000 voters in two days, it would face challenges when dealing with about 6. 4 million votes in one day.
About the Voters’ Roll, Tsvangirai said the voters’ roll was characterised by under registration of youths while there was over registration of the elderly, some 100, 000 of whom were aged over 100.
He said there about 650, 000 duplicate voters and scandalous voter transfers. “Zanu (PF) was investing in election rigging instead of cleaning the voters’ roll. Voter registration remained a Zanu (PF) tool for election rigging.”
Against provisions of the law, political parties other than Zanu (PF) were denied official access to information regarding who was printing ballot papers and in what quantities, he added.
Tsvangirai said instead of printing ballot papers equivalent to the number of registered voters, Fidelity Printers had printed over 8.2 million.
The trend was witnessed at the Special Voting, where some 250 000 ballot papers were printed against no more than 70 000 eligible voters, he said.
MDC-T raised concern over the refusal by ZEC to register JOMIC staff as observers at polling centres.
Tsvangirai said Zanu (PF) wanted to rig elections by inflating numbers of voters in constituencies such as police, army, prison camps and rural areas.
He urged Zimbabweans to come out in their numbers and cast their vote on July 31.
“Since there will be frustrations, if it takes sleeping on voters’ queues, the electorate should do just that until they cast the ballots,” said Tsvangirai.
Post published in: News