The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) is under-fire from the National Patriotic Front’s losing candidate, Agrippa Bopela Masiyakurima for allegedly inflating figures in the Mutare North constituency where he lost to Zanu PF Manicaland chairman Mike Madiro.
BY KENNETH NYANGANI
Masiyakurima told NewsDay yesterday that the electoral body was even failing to tally its figures in the hotly-contested constituency, claiming Zec officials transposed his votes with those of his opponent Madiro.
“We had instances we know the numbers of certain centres, but at some centres after the voting the numbers had doubled and we don’t know why? This election was rigged in Madiro’s favour there is no doubt about that,” he said.
“The numbers on the V11 forms and the results they produced are totally different. I was surprised with some figures and I can even show you what happened and there are some few V11 forms that are missing and I believe that they swapped my votes and gave them to Madiro.”
Masiyakurima said the constituency had 38 000 registered voters.
“When they announced the results, first they first said Madiro had almost 6 000 votes and they said I had garnered 3 000,” he said.
“Yesterday (Wednesday) they said that Madiro had almost 15 000 votes and I had 6 000. They are even failing to tally the figures and they are trying to rectify the figures. The figures keep changing and we don’t even know what is happening.
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“They are still failing to tally the figures and this is a stolen election; they are playing around with figures, but we had difficulties in coming up with the election results, some VII forms that we are seeing are not stamped.” Masiyakurima said he wanted a re-run in the constituency.
Zec chief elections officer for Manicaland Moffat Masabeya could not be reached for comment yesterday. However, Zanu PF secretary for administration Kenneth Saruchera said: “Our chairman (Madiro) won fairly and these are sour grapes.’’
