Said ZESN: “(On) Election day, urban voters were further systematically disenfranchised. At 82 percent of urban polling stations many potential voters were turned away and not permitted to vote for reasons which include names not appearing on the voters’ roll and turning up at the wrong ward for voting.
“This is in sharp contrast to rural areas where only 38 percent of polling stations turned away many potential voters. This served to disenfranchise thousands more of urban voters on election day.”
Urban constituencies have been regarded as MDC-T strongholds while rural areas are perceived as mainly Zanu (PF).
“These factors on their own fundamentally undermine the degree to which the results of the 2013 harmonised election can be considered to reflect the will of the Zimbabwean people,” added ZESN.
The network accused the state media of “massive bias” and said voter education ahead of the polls was poor while civil society was harassed.
While campaigns ahead of the elections were peaceful, ZESN said the polls would not be free and fair.
“We reiterate that, it is not sufficient for elections to be peaceful. For elections to be credible they must offer all eligible citizens a reasonable opportunity to register to vote; to inform themselves about the candidates; to vote on election day and for their votes to be properly counted. We are deeply concerned that for urban voters the first three principles have already been violated,” said ZESN.
It added that all political parties other than Zanu (PF) “had polling agents at 46 percent of polling stations”.
Post published in: News