THERE will be an early population census allowing a new
delimitation of constituencies by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) well
before the 2023 harmonised elections after President Mnangagwa approved the
Census and Statistics Amendment Act yesterday.
The amendment Act brings the census forward from 2022 to
before July next year to give Zec time to delimit all 210 constituency
boundaries for the presidential, parliamentary and local government elections
using up-to-date census data as required by the Constitution.
The signing into law of the Act was announced by the Chief
Secretary to the President and Cabinet, Dr Misheck Sibanda in a Government
Gazette recently.
The coming into effect of the law means Zec will delimitate
the 210 constituency seats for 2023 polls in a manner that reflects the present
population distribution premised on latest census data. Parliament passed the
law without amendments in July this year.
Constituencies are supposed to be of equal size, within
modest limits caused by provincial and district boundaries, but continual
movement of people changes the distribution.
Since the last delimitation, land reform has seen major
redistribution of rural populations, with some constituencies having huge
numbers, while the continuous rural-to-urban migration, which is common in most
developing countries, has seen many urban constituencies growing, especially
where large new housing development has taken place. Opening a new major mine
can also mean a boundary change.
Presenting the Bill in Senate last month, Justice, Legal
and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi, said the Zimbabwe National
Statistics Agency (ZimStats) should conclude the population census by July next
year, instead of 2022 to allow Zec enough time to use the information to
delimit constituencies for the 2023 harmonised elections.
Minister Ziyambi said in terms of the law, delimitation of
electoral boundaries must be completed less than six months before polling day
in a general election, and if that failed to happen, boundaries that existed
before the delimitation would be applicable.
He said in the absence of the proposed law, Zimbabwe faced
an “undesirable” prospect of using the same electoral boundaries as were used
back in the 2013 general election for two reasons.
“The first is that the next census is only due to be
completed in 2022. Even if all the data for 2022 was availed timeously, that
still brings us uncomfortably close within the range of six months of the next
election in 2023,” he said.
“Secondly, Zec will simply not have the time to do the
consultation, produce the report and table before Parliament its preliminary
and final delimitation reports to enable Parliament and the President to
properly consider them. Remember also that voter registration is done on a
continuous basis by Zec.”
President Mnangagwa has also signed into law the Veterans
of the Liberation Struggle Act, which seeks to provide rights and benefits to
veterans of the liberation struggle and their dependants. Herald
0 comments:
Post a Comment