Former opposition MDC-T leader Thokozani Khupe has urged the public to take the voters’ roll inspection process seriously as she sounded the alarm that only “five people inspect the voters’ roll per day”.
This comes after the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) spokesperson, Commissioner Jasper Mangwana, said the electoral management body had fully deployed its teams to preside over public inspection of the voters’ roll.
But after touring the voters’ roll centres on Wednesday Khupe claims she discovered that few people were doing the process to check their details.
“Today I inspected the voters’ roll and established that about 5 people inspect the voters roll per day. This is a sad development and l am appealing to all Citizens to go and inspect the voters roll – check that you’re registered and ensure that your details are correct,” Khupe said.
Mangwana said ZEC had invited civil society organisations (CSOs), political parties and the media to inspect the voters’ roll to make sure there are no anomalies.
“We are opening up the voters’ roll for public scrutiny so that we enhance the credibility of our electoral processes.
“Apart from civil society organisations (CSOs) and the media we have also invited the political parties to accredit for the voters’ roll inspection process,” Mangwana said.
“This is an opportunity to address any anomaly that may arise in the voters’ roll. We want members of the public to inspect the voters’ roll and identify if there are any anomalies so that we address them now as opposed to raising them at the 11th hour when we conduct delimitation and the 2023 harmonised election.”
Mangwana further stated that the inspections had been deliberately brought closer to communities.
“The commission wants to enhance the credibility of the voters’ roll and we have established 11 107 centres for the voters’ roll inspection. These are mostly traditional polling stations for voters.
“This means these stations are closer to where members of the public reside. These areas are less than 5km from where members of the public live,” he said.
