THE ongoing intensive voter registration exercise is likely to leave out thousands of potential voters from the system as it emerged that most mobile registration teams were deployed without adequate equipment to carry out the exercise. In other areas they were spending only two instead of 30 days in a ward.
Report by Staff Reporters
Prospective voters in long, winding queues in Bindura on Monday told journalists and a visiting delegation of legislators from the Parliamentary Portfolio committee on Defence and Home Affairs, chaired by Glen View South MP Paul Madzore, that most “aliens” were being turned away.
They complained that the process was moving at a snail’s pace raising fears that thousands of potential voters would not be able to register before the cut-off date.
“Most wards have closed registration and there is only one ward in Bindura which is still doing registration, but people cannot afford bus fares or long distances to register in Bindura,” a disgruntled resident told the committee.
Bindura provincial registrar Augustine Tsuro told MPs that 33 registration teams had been deployed in Bindura district with only 11 generators and 25 cameras to photograph applicants for national registration documents.
He said there were 412 registration centres in the province which were expected to be covered by the 33 teams in areas such as Mbire, Muzarabani, Guruve, Mazowe, Mount Darwin, Rushinga and Shamva.
“All teams are carrying out voter registration and issuing out of birth and death certificates, but some of these teams do not have cameras and generators and they have to share,” Tsuro said.
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“The total shortfall of equipment in the district is 26 cameras and 46 generators and we can only take photographs when there is light.”
Tsuro said although the current process had its own teething problems, it was much better than the first phase where a paltry 2 993 new applicants were processed while 4 510 people managed to inspect the voters’ roll. He said the current exercise had recorded a total of 18 060 first registrants while 20 012 people managed to inspect the roll.
Tsuro was, however, unable to give a figure of how many so-called aliens had been assisted preferring to say many were being assisted.
At Nyachuru Secondary School registration centre in Chiweshe, a long queue was observed when MPs visited the ward at lunchtime amid allegations that Zanu PF had provided food for people that had spent many hours in queues.
This claim could, however, not be independently verified as some people said the food was being given to schoolchildren.
Schoolchildren interviewed by NewsDay said the food was for the crowd waiting to register while people waiting to register said it was for schoolchildren albeit that most people observed eating were from the crowd while schoolchildren were in class.
“This food has been provided by Zanu PF since yesterday. Those suspected to be MDC supporters are not served the food, ” revealed one of the villagers.
In other parts of the country, the voter registration exercise was reportedly marred by controversy, delays and lack of equipment.
Mbizo MP Settlement Chikwinya said he had since officially written to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) requesting an extension of the voter registration exercise to allow hundreds of people to register.
Chikwinya said Zec chairperson Justice Rita Makarau was on record saying there was no official complaint from parties on the voter registration and he had since written to the chief elections officer seeking an extension of the voter registration exercise in his constituency. MDC-T candidate for Mbare Eric Knight said he had written a letter to his party bosses at Harvest House seeking their intervention on the matter after serious voter registration irregularities in Mbare. “The manner this exercise was handled was chaotic and several hundreds of potential voters left without registering,” Knight said.
