More than 70 percent of Zimbabweans eligible to vote have registered and are already on the voters roll, the chief elections officer of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, Mr Utoile Silaigwana, has told Parliament.
He said those trying to cheat the system were being picked
up and thwarted.
The ultra-modern biometric registration system had nailed
those trying to register more than once, apparently trying to collect
incentives being offered by some non-governmental organisations and civic
society groups who were mobilising people to register to vote.
Mr Silaigwana was last Thursday giving oral evidence before
Parliament’s portfolio committee on Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs,
chaired by Makoni South MP Cde Misheck Mataranyika (Zanu PF), had invited ZEC
and other units and entities under the Ministry of Justice, Legal and
Parliamentary Affairs to hear their views on what they had been allocated next
year in the Budget.
While ZEC’s system, said Mr Silaigwana, had been flushing
out the multiple applicants, but this was not before the NGOs and civic society
organisations had made noise accusing ZEC of registering fewer people than
applied.
He said some machines ZEC used in remote areas might not be
online at the time of application and the anomaly would only be picked when the
information had been transmitted to district offices.
“We have discovered most of them are already on the voters
roll. Perhaps they were mobilised. You will find that because we are not online
at the point of registration, then they have to export that information of the
registrants.
“But when this gets into the system that is when we see
that we have registered 30 percent of those who have applied. I do not know
whether this is because there are incentives that are given to voters,” he
said.
“Countrywide, if you look at the statistics of the census,
we have registered over 70 percent of people. If you go by province, I know
that in Matabeleland North province, we have registered over 82 percent of the
potential voters.
“So strictly speaking the number of people who are not registered
in the country but who are eligible, there are around 30 percent or less.”
The census figures would give ZEC the numbers of citizens
aged 18 or over and who are resident in Zimbabwe, the criteria to register as a
voter. The actual names of those citizens cannot come from the census as that
information is confidential, but ZEC, along with everyone else, can find out
how many adult citizens live in each province, district and urban area.
Although the pre-delimitation blitz was completed, any
resident adult citizen not on the roll can register at any time and is allowed
to vote in the next election or by-election for their area right up to the last
few weeks before the poll.
Mr Silaigwana said there was need for financial support for
ZEC to carry out intensive voter education to ensure that people were empowered
with information and civic rights. Voter education was a factor that anchored
stability in a country. If people were armed with information, that might help
in reducing conflict.
“One of the issues we have seen over the years is that if
we do not conduct effective voter education several things will come up. This
country needs stability more than anything else for growth to take place.
“If our people are voter educated to understand their
constitutional rights as far as voting is concerned they will tolerate
different views and public opinion in terms of their political standing and
then that will reduce the conflict in the country,” said Mr Silaigwana.
“We think that voter education empowers people to think
rationally and also reduce issues that might cause some misunderstanding within
our communities.
“So if we do not have enough money in that regard it means
instead of having six people for voter education in a ward we might have two.
Some of our wards stretches to 100km and if we have seven days, for example for
the process, it becomes very difficult.”
The engagement of stakeholders away from election periods
was critical so people would be thinking objectively as polls approached, hence
the need to continuously fund ZEC even in times when there were no elections.
“We believe that because of results and issues that emerge
in different engagements, we need to be capacitated so that we engage more
particularly off election periods. That is when people tend to listen better.
During election periods, self-centredness, personalities and temperatures will
be high,” he said.
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