ZIMBABWE ELECTION SUPPORT NETWORK
BIOMETRIC VOTER REGISTRATION UPDATE - NUMBER 15
12 January 2018 – The Biometric Voter registration (BVR) Blitz which commenced on 10
October 2017 came to an end on 19 December 2017.
Following pleas by electoral
stakeholders, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) announced that a mop up of the
voter registration would be done over a 30 day period from 10 January to 8 February 2018.
In view of the BVR mop up exercise, ZESN is deploying static observers at district
registration centres as well as at randomly selected centres across the country. In addition
mobile observer teams will also be deployed in all the 10 Provinces.
Election Preparedness
While ZESN commends the Commission for heeding calls by electoral stakeholders for an
extension of the BVR exercise, it is clear that the Commission would have benefited from a
bit more time to complete preparations to roll out this exercise. This is evident in that the
Commission was only able to publish the itinerary for the mop up exercise on the day that
the mop up commenced. The itinerary that was published seems to be changing
continuously. For instance the itinerary that was published in the Herald on 10 January 2018
indicated that ZEC will only deploy one team in ward 1, Chivi North at Vutete Clinic for a
period 4 days (10 -13 January 2018) however on 12 January ZEC opened an additional
registration center in the same ward at Mukotose Primary School, this center will be open
for two days (12-13 January 2018). Such changes seem to indicate that the deployment
strategy in use is not identical to the schedule published by the Commission.
ZESN notes that efforts to enfranchise voters by opening more registration centers can only
produce optimum results when effective voter education efforts and publicity of centres
have been implemented well ahead of time. An analysis of the schedule of the registration
centers to be used during the mop up shows that some centers are open for a few days with