ED TO PROVIDE MORE COMMENTS TO ZEC REPORT : CHARAMBA

PRESIDENT Mnangagwa on Friday received a draft preliminary delimitation report from the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) — which was amended after submissions from both Parliament and the President himself, as per Constitutional requirement — and is expected to favour the elections management body with his comments, after which the statutory body will compile the final document for gazetting, having either taken the comments into account or disregarded them, it has been learnt.

There were erroneous reports that the document that was handed over to President Mnangagwa was the final delimitation report.

Deputy Chief Secretary in the Office of the President and Cabinet (Presidential Communications) Mr George Charamba told The Sunday Mail yesterday that the President will submit his comments to ZEC after studying the draft preliminary delimitation report, as amended.

“Following submission of the preliminary report by the ZEC (Zimbabwe Electoral Commission), that action put in train two sets of reactions: One from Parliament (of Zimbabwe) and another one from His Excellency, the President. Both these are by way of feedback to ZEC’s preliminary delimitation report. Both sets of reactions were given to ZEC, and the first to do so was Parliament of Zimbabwe, through the President, as required by the Constitution. Then the President later sent his own response to the preliminary delimitation report,” said Mr Charamba.

“Out of those two responses, ZEC then produced a draft preliminary report with the new amendments, which means amendments from Parliament and amendments noted by the President. What the chairlady of ZEC (Justice Priscilla Chigumba) gave the President (on Friday) was the preliminary report, as amended by the reactions from both Parliament and from the President.”

ZEC handed over the initial preliminary report to President Mnangagwa on December 26, 2022.

Both the National Assembly and Senate were subsequently summoned last month to debate the report after it was tabled in Parliament.

On January 19, Speaker of the National Assembly Advocate Jacob Mudenda then handed over its comments on the proposed amendments to the delimitation report to President Mnangagwa, who later transmitted it to ZEC as required by the law.

He also submitted his own comments on January 23.

After going through the reactions from both the President and Parliament, ZEC then produced the draft preliminary delimitation report, which was submitted to the former on Friday.

“The President, in turn, will go through that preliminary report, as amended. Depending on how he views it, he will then give ZEC his final comment on that draft preliminary report, as amended,” added Mr Charamba.

“Those would be his final comments on the matter, and ZEC will exercise its Constitutional right to either take them into account or to discard them, because the Constitution gives ZEC the final say on the compilation of what then becomes the final delimitation report. So, the final delimitation report is then what will be given to the President for gazetting.”

This is the first delimitation report that would be produced under the new Constitution adopted in 2013. Sunday Mail

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