A GROUP of fact-checkers, Team Pachedu has accused the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) of refusing to release a consolidated voters roll ahead of the delimitation exercise.
In line with section 21 of the Electoral Act, a copy of the
voters roll should be made available to those who request it upon payment of
the prescribed fee.
“With delimitation set to start soon, Zec is still
unwilling to avail the national consolidated voters roll to anyone who wants
it,” Team Pachedu claimed yesterday.
“The Electoral Act is clear on availing the roll to any
individual who pays the prescribed fee. It is not all about inspection. Zec
must answer.”
The delimitation exercise, which involves creating new
electoral boundaries, is expected to start in October and end in December 2022.
The last exercise was based on the Registrar-General’s
voters roll.
The upcoming exercise will be conducted using census data.
Team Pachedu added: “The failure to release the full voters
roll on a timely basis is a clear violation of the law. We should never get
excited about going into an election without certain benchmarks being met.”
NewsDay failed to get a comment from Zec spokesperson
Jasper Mangwana and chief elections officer Utoile Silaigwana.
Both kept promising to respond to NewsDay questions, but
failed to do so by the time of going to print last night.
Opposition and independent election watchdogs said Zec’s
refusal to release the consolidated voters roll further dented the credibility
of the document after a number of discrepancies were unearthed by data experts
in the past few months.
“The failure to publicly avail the voters roll timeously
will further diminish public confidence in electoral processes. This will
inevitably frustrate the citizens prospects of validating the credibility and
accuracy of the delimitation outcome,” Citizens Coalition for Change interim
deputy elections secretary Ellen Shiriyedenga said.
Election Resource Centre programmes manager Solomon
Bobosibunu said: “It’s not only legal, but morally right. The voters roll is
part of the key electoral material that must be availed transparently. That
helps with accountability.”
Zimbabwe Election Support Network chairperson Andrew Makoni
said: “It’s critical. If there are any anomalies, they can be attended to. So
when a party or an individual requests a voters roll they are in terms of the
law entitled to have it.
“The public portal can be secured by Zec itself to ensure
that no one can tamper with it. It allows people to view the data they want.”
Zimbabwe Election Advocacy Trust executive director Igneous
Sadziwa said Zec should be taken to task for refusing to release the voters
roll.
“This is a serious breach of the Constitution and,
therefore, stern action must be meted against the commission for failing to
fulfil its constitutional obligations. Going into an election without important
documentation like the voters roll is catastrophic for political parties and
the electorate,” Sadziwa said.
“It’s a public document. If the tiff persists, we have no
option but to disband the commission for gross misconduct.”
Meanwhile, election watchdogs which observed Kenyan polls
have challenged Zec to draw lessons on the diaspora vote, use of technology,
voters roll auditing and assisted voter system.
“Zimbabwe needs to implement legislation that allows for
Zimbabweans above 18 to vote in their resident countries. Botswana, South
Africa and Kenya demonstrated possibilities,” Bobosibunu said.
Makoni lauded Kenya’s Independent Electoral and Boundaries
Commission for embracing technology and engaging an independent auditor KPMG to
audit the voters roll to promote transparency.
“We saw technology at play. Voting was largely through the
Kenya Integrated Election Management System consisting of biometric voter
registration, electronic voter identification system and the electronic
transmission of results,” he said.
Mangwana earlier this week said it was the duty of
Parliament to make laws on electoral reforms such as the need for the diaspora
vote.
“Parliamentarians must be able to make these laws (in time)
so that when we run elections we are able to check if some provisions can work
or not. In Zimbabwe we don’t have that (voters’ roll auditing). Our voter
inspection exercise is far more transparent than the third party audit,” he
said. Newsday
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