A LOCAL pressure group, Concerned Citizens Support Network of Zimbabwe (CCSNZ), will this week roll out voter education campaigns, starting with Harare, in anticipation of a hurried exercise by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) ahead of next year’s elections.
BY OBEY MANAYITI
The country is expected to hold early polls next year, but there were still many processes, including voter education and registration using the biometric voter registration kits, which still need to be undertaken before the polls.
CCSNZ said more time was being spent on political grandstanding, as political parties accuse Zec of trying to buy time so that important processes would not not undertaken timely.
“CCSNZ will continue with its efforts to give voter education information to Zimbabweans. There are important processes that must be undertaken before election day and at the moment, it seems things are not moving at a desirable pace,” CCSNZ said yesterday.
“Starting from this week, we will be launching voter education targeting areas where there are high concentrations of people.”
The organisation said they would be working with vendors and people at busy bus terminuses to explain the need to register to vote.
Political parties under the National Election Reform Agenda (Nera) banner have been holding demonstrations to push Zec into implementing their desired reforms.
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According to CCSNZ, the informal sector had been left out in targeted programmes like the door-to-door campaigns.
“Our research showed that these people are rarely home when door-to-door voter campaigns are done. Now we have decided to go to their workplaces,” the organisation said.
“We also realised that these people are aware of the economic disparities prevailing in Zimbabwe, hence we have appropriately named this programme ‘Operation Mupedzanhamo’. Loosely translated, it means, this is an operation that will contribute significantly to the end of our suffering.”
CCSNZ said they did not expect harassment and intimidation on people embarking on the voter education campaign.
