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Komichi trial: Zec, RG accused of causing poll chaos

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THE Zimbabwe Electoral Commission connived with the Registrar-General's Office to mess up the voters’ roll.

THE Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) connived with the Registrar-General (RG)’s Office to mess up the voters’ roll, causing the confusion witnessed during the July 14-16 special vote, Harare magistrate Tendai Mahwe heard yesterday.

PHILLIP CHIDAVAENZI

This claim was made during MDC–T chief elections agent Morgen Komichi’s trial on allegations of contravening the Electoral Act after he allegedly tampered with Constable Mugove Chiginya’s ballots for the special vote.

Komichi’s lawyer Alec Muchadehama, who was cross– examining Zec chief legal officer Shamiso Barbara Chahuruva, claimed Zec and the RG’s Office authored the chaos witnessed during the polls.

“I suggest to you that Zec in connivance with the RG was deliberately deleting voters’ names from the voters’ roll and changing their constituencies, that is why there was confusion,” Muchadehama said.

Muchadehama asked Chahuruva if she was aware that some of the people who voted in 2008 failed to find their names in the roll at the same polling stations, with others who had been registered in Harare discovering that they were now registered in places such as Chivhu and Tsholotsho.

Chahuruva, however, said she was not aware of that and said Zec was not responsible for the registration of voters as that was the brief of the RG. The commission, she said, only played a supervisory role.

She said the fact that many voters were unaware of the constituencies in which they had been registered to vote could not be blamed on the commission.

The trial continues today.