In what will be seen as a convenient lame excuse, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) has accused the Registrar-General’s office of crippling its voter registration exercise by delaying certification of youths that have turned 18 years and above.
This comes after ZEC, last month, suspended a voter registration blitz which was scheduled for the 6th of December.
The suspension of the blitz came during the peak of a massive opposition MDC Alliance poll mobilisation drive that was mainly targeted at the youths during the festive season.
The move raised eyebrows with observers viewing it as a plan by the ruling Zanu PF party to get rid of opposition supporters.
In an interview with Peter Marimi of the Masvingo Mirror on Monday, ZEC spokesperson Joyce Laetitia Kazembe said the commission’s primary target was to register youths who have turned 18 and above.
She added that the voter registration blitz was suspended because the Registrar-General’s office was behind in terms of issuing identity documents to these youths.
“One of the functions that we have to do in preparations is to register voters. Particularly now, our target as we talk are the youths that have turned 18 and we are in liaison with the Registrar-General’s so that when we eventually go because we had intended to go for a blitz voter registration exercise but we realised there are quite a number of youths that have not yet registered because the Registrar-General has not done so. We work hand in glove with the Registrar-General,” Kazembe said.
“Normally, they go ahead of us registering these young people that have turned 18. Once they have done that, we also and then put them into the voters roll.”
Kazembe added: “We also need to clean the voters’ roll. In other words, to remove the deceased from that and we get this information from the Registrar-General. If he does not have or she doesn’t have then we rely on the relatives of the deceased to actually come forward with proof that this person is dead. ”
The opposition MDC Alliance is targeting six million supporters in the upcoming 2023 elections and Zanu PF is targeting five million. Nehanda Radio
