Biometric Voter Registration (BVR)
Human Rights Violations Report.
1.0 Introduction
On 10 October 2017, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), launched a blitz Biometric
Voter Registration (BVR) exercise across the country. The blitz was a follow up to the launch
of the BVR by former President, Robert Mugabe on the 18th of September 2017. Several Civil
Society Organisations (CSOs) including Heal Zimbabwe noted that the process was rolled out
against a background where there was lack of robust voter education around the new voter
registration exercise exposing the process to manipulation by politicians. This was a direct
contradiction with International and regional best practices on elections such as SADC
Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections that compel Electoral bodies such
as ZEC to carry out robust voter registration exercises so as to raise awareness amongst the
electorate and build confidence in electoral processes.
Heal Zimbabwe through its resident human rights monitors in all the country’s 10 provinces
monitored the environment during the mobile voter registration exercise. This was done with
the objective of monitoring the environment and report on any cases of human rights violations
as well as making referrals where necessary for redress. In 2016, Heal Zimbabwe established
an early warning and early response system for easy detection and response to cases of human
rights violations.
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