As shown in Diagram 3 above, almost half of the 621 respondents said they were not aware of all
the contesting political parties in their constituencies whilst almost the same number confirmed
more awareness of all contesting political parties in their constituencies. In future, equal media
access should be made to all contesting political parties to provide voters with critical information
for their own informed political choices.
4.2 The Administrative Framework
The 2018 harmonised elections was guided by the Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment (No.20) Act
2013 and the Electoral Act [Chapter 2:13]. The following could have been more helpful in the interim:
4.2.1 More and Sufficient Voter Education
Voter education provided by ZEC was not wholly adapted and translated to all the country's 16
languages as stated in Section 6(1) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment (No. 20 Act) 2013.
With the dominance of English, Shona and Ndebele languages, those who speak other languages
such as Tonga, Nambya, Venda, Tswana and sign language felt excluded. Victims of the voter
education language barrier have been largely men and women who live in the margins and border
areas of the country - which are also very remote and marginalised - where the languages are
spoken. The following diagram illustrates accessibility of voter education in different areas:
Diagram 4: Percentage of CCJPZ observers who witnessed voter education provided by ZEC
CCJPZ observers also assessed voter education provided by ZEC in the context generational,
lingual and gender dimensions. The following diagrams summarize the observations:
16
Select target paragraph3
Add to table of contents