Election Resource Centre Director Tawanda Chimhini said the election preparatory period had been marked by chaos.
“The best way to describe the process up to July 31 is that it has been chaotic and was characterised by a lot of uncertainty. We remain very worried by the state of preparedness of the electoral commission. Voter registration failed to satisfy the demand. ZEC was unable to educate all Zimbabweans. The special vote was extremely problematic and there was not enough information for the public. There are still issues with transparency and accountability of the voters’ roll,” he said.
Chimhini said it was worrying that not much had been done to address numerous concerns raised by political parties and CSOs. Analysts fear that grounds are fertile for disgruntled participants to contest the outcome.
“Anyone contesting the elections has legitimate reasons to dispute the results,” he said, adding that the electoral authorities had approached the whole process with a checklist mentality.
“They just wanted to be able to say voter registration was done, voter education was done without looking at the quality of what was done on the ground,” he said.
Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition Programmes Manager Nixon Nyikadzino said his organisation was compiling a comprehensive report but still had hopes that the election could be rescued despite the controversy.
“We are of the view that out of concrete flowers can grow. The process was flawed, disputed, not up to standard and marked by the ill preparedness exhibited by ZEC,” Nyikadzino said.
ZEC has not had a rosy relationship with civil society in the run up to the elections. CSOs were frozen out of the voter registration exercise as most failed to get accreditation on time.
The commission also demanded to see the budgets of any organisation seeking to be part of the process. The voter registration period saw a number of CSO employees arrested for conducting ‘illegal voter education’.
Zimbabwe Election Support Network’s Rindai Vava told The Zimbabwean that her organisation commended the relatively peaceful environment but was concerned by the conduct of ZEC.
“We call on ZEC to ensure that there is clarity in terms of the special vote and the availability of voters’ rolls showing those who have already voted. We also have strong concerns on the publication of polling stations. People need that information in time,” Vava said.
Post published in: News