The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission is considering a raft of
measures gleaned from other electoral bodies on the continent to improve
conduct of elections ahead of 2023 when the next election is due.
This also includes lobbying Parliament to amend the
Constitution and allow for the delimitation exercise to be conducted ahead of
schedule and extension of the women’s quota system.
Other measures include adoption of a code of conduct for
political parties that provides for docking of votes after violation of its
provisions and barring such offending parties from campaigning in certain areas
or advertising in the media depending on the gravity of the offence.
Some of the measures are contained in the African Charter
on Democracy, Elections and Governance (ACDEG) which is in the process of being
ratified.
It has gone through both houses of Parliament and is now
with the Ministry Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs.
ZEC Commissioner Joyce Kazembe said the Commission was
committed to facilitating conduct of democratic elections in line with ACDEG.
“We are together with civic society and other stakeholders
in wishing that people exercise their democratic rights in a manner that is
defined in the ACDEG,” she said.
“This ensures that we are on the same plane in Africa
because we have different ways of expressing democracy, elections and so on,
but the intention of the ACDEG is that Africa as a continent comes together and
has sort of an agreement.”
Comm Kazembe said realisation of democratic ideals was
being entrenched through engagements with the people, civic society, faith
based organisations, political parties, Parliament and other commissions.
“Although the ACDEG is still in the process of ratification
we have already started implementing some of its provisions because it is in
our mandate,” she said.
“Part of it includes lobbying and asking Parliament to
reform the laws because there is a disjuncture between what is in the Electoral
Law and the Constitution. So they need to be aligned.”
ZEC legal services director Ms Shamiso Chahuruva said there
was need for amendment of the Constitution to bring forward the delimitation
exercise last conducted in 2012 and due in 2023 according to the 10-year cycle.
“From our various engagements with various stakeholders,
there are a number of issues that have emerged which as ZEC we are considering
and have included in a raft of proposals for amendment of the Constitution,”
she said.
“In terms of the law, the delimitation exercise is supposed
to be conducted in 2023 after the population census. We are trying to lobby
Parliament through the Ministry of Justice to allow the commission to conduct
the exercise earlier than 2023.”
Ms Chahuruva said reforms were also looking at postal
voting.
“We are currently involved in researching how other
jurisdictions deal with issues of diaspora voting,” she said. “We know for
example that in Mozambique two seats are reserved for people in the diaspora.
“These are the issues we want to bring to the people so
that they know that this is what is done in other countries so that we can come
up with our own model as Zimbabwe.”
ZEC is also considering discarding the current “persuasive”
code of conduct to one with sanctions for violations, including docking of
votes for offences like the South African code.
“In our peer learning visits with various electoral
management bodies we have learnt that there is regulation of their political
parties and their electoral code of conduct empowers or sanctions
non-conforming political parties,” said Ms Chahuruva. Chronicle
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