Electoral commission wants to clean up voters’ roll

By Chengetai Zvauya

HARARE – The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) has demanded the voters’ roll from Registrar-General Tobaiwa Mudede’s office to clean it up, indicating that Zimbabwe is headed for elections soon.

Commission chairman Justice Simpson Mutambanengwe told the Daily News on Wednesday that the ZEC was unhappy with the state of the voting register and is calling for a new mechanism and approach to make it better.

“We are in discussion with the Registrar- General about the need to clean the voters’ roll and how it is going to be done still remains to be worked out.

“There are also a lot of people who no longer qualify as citizens who must be removed from the voters roll as they stayed 12 months outside the country. This mainly affects people in the diaspora.

“Whether we use the present roll or start on a clean fresh registration is still to be decided but we have agreed that we need to clean it up. This is important in any election whether we have a new constitution or old constitution, we still need a voters’ roll that is acceptable to the electorate.”

“It is not a secret that the voters’ roll has a number of dead voters that must be removed and the ZEC team wants the voters roll to be upgraded and cleaned so that it can be ready for use in the referendum  to be held after the completion of the constitutional making process currently underway,” Justice Mutambanengwe said.

ZEC is one of the commissions set up by the inclusive government as a critical organ in the running of a credible election following the dismantling of the electoral commission led by Justice George Chiweshe which delayed releasing the presidential election results in March 2008.

Mutambanengwe, a retired judge from Zimbabwe and Namibia’s Supreme Court said he wanted to help Zimbabwe deliver a credible election accepted by everyone.

”The commission is ready and willing to carry out its constitutional mandate of delivering free and fair elections that should not be disputed by anyone,” he said

He said his office was willing to work with the public and political parties if they wanted access to the voters roll. Daily News