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NewsDay

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Soldiers troop for voter registration

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MEMBERS of the uniformed forces and their immediate family members have reportedly been flocking the Registrar-General Tobaiwa Mudede’s Makombe Building offices in Harare since last week to register as voters in the forthcoming constitutional referendum and harmonised elections.

MEMBERS of the uniformed forces and their immediate family members have reportedly been flocking the Registrar-General Tobaiwa Mudede’s Makombe Building offices in Harare since last week to register as voters in the forthcoming constitutional referendum and harmonised elections.

Report by Everson Mushava

This follows a directive to do so by their superiors.

When NewDay visited Makombe Building on Monday and Tuesday, there were long queues of soldiers, police officers, prison guards — many of them in uniform — and their relatives who had reportedly been bused from various barracks and camps around Harare.

Later on, the NewsDay crew witnessed large groups of people boarding hired kombis and driving in different directions after registering.

“Are all the people from Dzivarasekwa through so that we can go? If some have not yet registered, those with bus fare can go while we wait for others,” a man who appeared to be co-ordinating the process said before he walked towards  parked vehicles,  apparently to ensure all was in order.

Asked to comment on the development, police spokesperson Charity Charamba dismissed the reports as untrue saying it was not a crime for police officers to register as voters as all political parties and civil society were on the ground urging people to register.

She denied the police were aligned to Zanu PF.

“This lame excuse appears to be a figment of the imagination of certain journalists who have the insatiable appetite of demonising the ZRP whenever there is an impending election,” Charamba said.

“We are aware that they do this to please their erstwhile masters for monetary gains, but as police, we will not retract from our constitutional mandate because there are certain individuals and organisations that apportion blame to the police for their failures.”

However, Police Commissioner-General Augustine Chihuri is reported to have instructed his provincial commanders to tour police stations countrywide urging officers and their relatives to register as voters in preparation for harmonised elections expected later this year.

Chihuri recently addressed wives of senior police officers in Selous where he reportedly implored them to vote for Zanu PF.  A few days later, he reportedly told members of the police’s Kuyedza Women’s Club that they should demonstrate their patriotism by rallying behind Zanu PF.

Soldiers and prison guards are reported to have received the same orders, but Zimbabwe Defence Forces spokesperson Colonel Overson Mugwisi denied that soldiers were being coerced to register as voters or to rally behind Zanu PF.

“Soldiers have the right to register to vote like any other citizen, but (it is not true) that they are doing that under instructions.  I wonder how telling someone whom to vote for could be feasible because people vote secretly,” Mugwisi said.