Presiding officer smuggles ballot box
HARARE – A smuggled ballot box allegedly from nearby barracks has been found at the constituency command centre in Dzivarasekwa, the Daily News can report.
A Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) official confirmed to the Daily News that the presiding officer Rachel Machiya staggered into Dzivaresekwa Community Hall No 2 carrying a ballot box which contained presidential ballot papers.
It is alleged that Machiya single-handedly transported the ballot box during the crack of dawn around 3am. Machiya ran into an alert MDC election agent Jameson Zaranyika.
He confirmed that he witnessed Machiya suspiciously sneaking into the centre carrying the ballot box containing the presidential votes.
“Around 3am I woke up and went inside the hall, there I saw the presiding officer Rachel Machiya carrying a ballot box,” Zaranyika said.
“When I asked her what she was doing, she said she was trying to retrieve the V11 form and we also discovered that she had brought the ballot box from the army barracks where our polling agent had been locked outside.”
The Zec’s chief elections officer for Dzivaresekwa only identified as R Tapfumaneyi said she could not shed light into the scandal, saying the matter had been referred to higher offices.
“Yes we have heard about that but you can get that information from Remembrance,” said Tapfumaneyi.
When the Daily News visited Remembrance Drive in Mbare, the Zec district command centre chief elections officer Taurayi Gavi said they had received reports of the smuggled ballot.
At around 5 pm yesterday, results for the presidential elections were still not pasted outside the polling station at Dzivaresekwa Community Centre No 2, with officials from Zanu PF and the MDC camped at the site.
Under the country’s electoral laws, ballot boxes must be counted at polling stations and results immediately pasted outside soon after tallying. Daily News
