SPEAKER of the National Assembly Jacob Mudenda says the Constitution should be amended to allow people in the diaspora to vote, becoming the first senior official in the ruling Zanu PF party to push that agenda.
“Amendments to the Electoral Act should clearly specify the
procedures and mechanisms for registration and voting for citizens in the
diaspora,” said Mudenda while addressing legislators and other stakeholders at
a workshop on the Electoral Amendment Bill, which was sponsored by the Southern
African Parliamentary Support Trust and the Zimbabwe Election Support Network
(Zesn) in Kariba yesterday.
Mudenda also said political parties and candidates who
perpetrated electoral violence should be disqualified through amendments to the
Electoral Act, which should empower the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) to
censure errant political parties and politicians.
He also pointed out that the future of the country’s
elections depended on the role political parties played in promoting peaceful
and credible elections by sending the right signals and urging their supporters
to shun electoral violence.
“The regulatory body (Zec) can play a role through robust
political voter education. However, ultimately the conduct of political parties
themselves will determine a positive outcome because they wield an enormous
influence on their supporters. Currently, there are no enforcement provisions on
the code of conduct and the political parties continue to violate the code with
impunity,” Mudenda said.
“Zec should be empowered through the Electoral Act to
censure, or even disqualify political parties or candidates that act with
impunity during the electoral processes. There is need to amend the
Constitution to encapsulate the diaspora vote.”
He further noted that another area of concern was
protection of the secrecy of the ballot and mechanisms to ensure reduction of
assisted voters.
“Another observation I make on the proposed Electoral Bill
is that it must comply with sections 160 and 161 of the Constitution, regarding
the delimitation of electoral boundaries. The provision of the voters roll in
searchable and analysable format is commendable. While this provision enhances
transparency of the voters roll, and it is welcome, caution has to be exercised
to ensure a balance between the right to access and the right to privacy of the
information contained in the voters roll.
“It is suggested that amendment to the law could include
hashing of some fields like identity number, date of birth, and the voter’s
address which should lead to the generation of scanned copies from the printed
copy. The suggestion is that the scanned copies should be availed only to
contesting parties and candidates and not individuals, observers, candidates or
organisations. Relatedly, the closure of the voters roll should have reasonable
timelines which should be provided for in the Electoral Law,” Mudenda said.
The Speaker said the Electoral Act should include time
limits for adjudication of pre-election disputes at the electoral courts.
“It is alleged that despite the fact that all election
disputes are considered as urgent, there was a sizeable number of pre-election
cases that were set down for hearing with significant delays and judgments that
were not rendered before the election day. This may dent the integrity of the
electoral process,” he noted.
“On the withdrawal of contesting candidates, it is
submitted that the law should provide for the timeframe regarding the
withdrawal in relation to parliamentary and local authority elections. However,
the law is silent in regard to the parliamentary and local authority
candidature. Furthermore, the electoral law should define the scope of who
qualifies for postal voting in a more elastic manner.”
While the country should adopt best electoral practices
from other countries, Zimbabwe should, however, not be a copycat, but fashion
its own laws, Mudenda added.
Meanwhile, Zesn has revealed that about 83,52% of
Zimbabweans are ignorant of the constituency delimitation exercise because
Electoral Act provisions do not allow citizen’s participation.
In a report on delimitation findings last week, Zesn said
information on delimitation was pivotal to ensure transparency ahead of the
2023 polls.
Section 161 of the Constitution stipulates that electoral
boundaries should be delimited once every 10 years soon after a population
census.
“From the field research, a majority (83,52%) of citizens
does not know about the delimitation process. Of those aware of the
delimitation, slightly above a quarter (25,89%) are aware of when delimitation
occurs, nearly a third (29,70%) have knowledge of the legal framework on
delimitation and 38,32% have knowledge of the authority responsible for
delimitation. This points to a need to raise awareness on the provisions of
elections (including delimitation), in the Constitution and Electoral Act,” the
Zesn report read.
Political analyst Rejoice Ngwenya said: “In principle,
delimitation is a highly technical process, albeit constitutional. Zimbabweans
have very little trust in Zec since it is considered a partisan institution.
This means everything that Zec does will always attract ridicule.”
He said people suspected that the delimitation exercise
gave Zec an opportunity to reduce the constituencies in areas where the
opposition is dominant. Newsday
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