PARLIAMENT will from Friday this week conduct public hearings on the Electoral Amendment Bill amid calls by civic society groups that the law should have provisions to ensure credibility of voter registration processes.
VENERANDA LANGA SENIOR PARLIAMENTARY REPORTER
The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, chaired by Harare West MP Jessie Majome, will conduct the hearings in Mashonaland Central, Midlands, Matabeleland North and South, Bulawayo, Masvingo, Manicaland and Harare.
This comes a fortnight after MDC-T members of the National Assembly managed to convince Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs minister Emmerson Mnangagwa to allow the committee to conduct public hearings on the Bill before it was passed.
The Bill sailed through in the Senate, but when it reached the National Assembly, Mnangagwa agreed to allow the committee to conduct public hearings and table their recommendations in the House before passing the amendments.
Zimbabwe Election Support Network director Rindai Chitsinde on Monday told delegates at a conference to unpack the proposed new Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) voter registration process that there was need to embed the new voter registration process in the electoral law.
“The registration process needs to be embedded within the Electoral Amendment Act to ensure clarity and protect the process,” she said.
“The Act will ensure eligibility criteria and other processes such as deletions and inclusions in the voters’ roll are provided for.”
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Chitsinde said the Act should establish and reinforce the independence of Zec in the voter registration process and custodianship of voter registrations.
According to Mnangagwa, there was urgency in passing the electoral amendments because the Presidential Powers Regulations that were passed by President Robert Mugabe to effect changes in the Electoral Act before the July 31 elections had since lapsed rendering the current law out of conformity with the Constitution.
Other stakeholders from civic society groups yesterday asked Zec to ensure MPs, councillors and chiefs were given a role in disseminating information with regard to the proposed new voter registration model to the people to make the process interactive.
