THE Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) is battling to
prevent a potentially explosive administrative disaster during the 2023
elections as it emerges that a provision in the electoral law may not allow the
elections management body enough time to redraw constituency boundaries in time
for the polls.
The Constitution obligates Zec to draw up new electoral
boundaries every 10 years, immediately after a national population census,
which is due in 2022. But the three onerous obligations — financing the 2022
population census, the delimitation exercise and the 2023 harmonised elections
— would also present a mountain-sized challenge for Treasury.
Zec is actively pushing for the amendment of Section 161
(1) of the Constitution to delink the delimitation exercise from the census.
Zec chief elections officer Mr Utoile Silaigwana said it has since opened lines
of communication with the Ministry of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs
on the envisaged changes.
“You are aware that we conducted the last elections on the
basis of the delimitation that was done between 2007 and 2008. There has been a
lot of movement of people from one area to another and new settlements have
developed since the last exercise. The Constitution says we should do delimitation
immediately after the population census, which is due in 2022, with the
elections following a year later.
“Now, do we have the time to have the census report in
order to do the delimitation that will lead into the elections? Clearly, we do
not have the time. Probably the legislators did not foresee that problem. We
think there needs to be a revisit to that provision that links delimitation to
the census so that there is a delink between the two.”
There are also fears that the financial outlay that is
needed to bankroll the census, the delimitation exercise and the elections
might be unsustainably burdensome for Treasury. It is believed that amending
Section 161 (1) of the Constitution and parts of the Electoral Act in order to
delink delimitation from the census will help repeal a provision that makes it
mandatory for the elections management body to redraw constituency boundaries,
particularly in cases where the delimitation is concluded six months before an
election.
Zec has already prepared a concept note outlining the
essential legislative changes required to avert the potentially disastrous
administrative missteps. But the delimitation exercise — which Zec says is
supposed to be conducted 18 months before the elections in order to have adequate
time for public awareness campaigns and for political parties and candidates to
chart campaign strategies that are in sync with the new boundaries — is likely
to be contentious in the 2023 election cycle.
The mushrooming of peri-urban settlements, most of which
are overlapping administrative boundaries between urban and rural local
authorities, will likely make it difficult for the elections management body to
properly map the areas. Most streets in these settlements are nameless, which
presents additional difficulties for the planning process. Zec fears that it
might end up being bogged down by the elaborate process of mapping the areas, a
process which ordinarily should be conducted by local authorities.
Most challenges, he said, are expected from settlements
lying on administrative district boundaries such as Goromonzi, Mount Pleasant
Heights, Umguza and Caledonia.
Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Ziyambi
Ziyambi told our Harare Bureau that Government was amenable to the proposed
changes.
“One of the things
we need to do when we are amending the Constitution is to delink delimitation
of constituencies from the census. The Constitution speaks about delimitation
being done immediately after a census; now if you look at our situation, our
census is done a year before elections and delimitation exercise needs more
than a year to make it meaningful. This means it cannot be done a year before
an election,” he said.
However, even if the delimitation exercise – which largely
depends on the number of registered voters in an administrative jurisdiction –
is delinked to the census, it will mean that jurisdictions with low voter
registration statistics will witness a reduction or merging of existing
constituencies.
A recent research conducted by the Zimbabwe Election
Support Network (ZESN), a non-governmental organisation, established that using
the legally established threshold for delimitation, National Assembly
constituencies should have an average 27 000 voters.
By implication, this would mean a “decrease in
constituencies” in areas such as Bulawayo, Matabeleland North and Matabeleland
South and Masvingo. Conversely, it would also mean more constituencies in
Harare, Manicaland, Mashonaland West and Mashonaland Central, according to
ZESN. The number of constituencies in Mashonaland East province and Midlands
will, however, remain unchanged.
In essence, the number of constituencies in Bulawayo, which
has 257 924 registered voters, would be revised from 12 to 10, while in Harare,
constituencies would rise from 29 to 33. Mashonaland Central, which boasts of
531 310 voters, will have 20 constituencies, up from 18, while two more
constituencies would be added to Mash West constituencies to make them 24.
Sunday Mail
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