Thousands of potential voters will not be able to cast their vote in the crucial national election on July 31 because they have been denied a chance to register as voters.
Newsday Editorial
The registration exercise ended on Tuesday evening with hordes of people left stranded in queues.
The process was fraught with irregularities from the outset when Registrar-General Tobaiwa Mudede told Parliament last month that the registration officers would only be spending at most three days per ward contrary to the 30 days set out in the new Constitution.
At the Registrar-General (RG)’s Office at Market Square, officials had by midday on Tuesday issued queue-holding cards to over 500 aspiring voters waiting to be served at around midday. Outside the centre, an estimated 1 000 others were still waiting to get their chance.
To this end, expecting that all people who wanted to register would have been accorded an opportunity to do so was a fallacy.
One gets the feeling that this could as well have been a deliberate move to ensure that as little a number of voters — especially new ones — in urban areas register. Urban areas, whose restive population has been increasingly frustrated by Zanu PF’s governance failures, have been known to sympathise with Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC-T party.
It’s sad that the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec), which is responsible for the registration of voters, said the registration period would not be extended.
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Justice Rita Makarau, chairperson of Zec, however, said those that were in the queue on the last day of registration on Tuesday would all be served.
What is clear is that the same officials from the RG’s Office have been deliberately frustrating potential voters by employing delaying tactics so that only a few people could be afforded an opportunity to exercise their right to vote.
The new Constitution demands that the State should take all appropriate measures to ensure that all eligible citizens are registered as voters and to ensure that every citizen who is eligible to vote has an opportunity to cast their ballot.
It is clear, however, that the time set aside for voter registration was too little in view of the huge numbers of people who would have wanted to register so that they can also make their voice heard in the election.
We agree with Prime Minister Tsvangirai that in light of this, the people of Zimbabwe have a legitimate expectation that Zec will at least extend the voter registration exercise to fulfil the State’s obligation to ensure that all eligible citizens are registered to vote and will be able to cast their ballot on July 31.
The chaos that marred the voter registration exercise buttresses fears of a grand strategy to disenfranchise perceived MDC-T supporters and ensure a Zanu PF victory.
Zec and the RG’s Office owe it to the people of Zimbabwe to make sure that every person eligible to register as a voter secures that opportunity.
