was made clear on the 14 July, 2015 when the deputy chairperson of the Commission said
that if a voter presented themselves at a polling station and that person had not registered
during the pilot registration period, ZEC would refer to the 2013 voters’ roll to check
whether they were previously registered and direct that person, based on their address, to
the specific polling station where that person should vote. ZESN commends the Commission
for putting in place mechanisms to ensure that potential voters who did not participate in
the pilot voter registration exercise were still able to vote if their name was in the 2013
voters roll. ZESN, however, reiterates its call for the Commission to ensure that, by the date
of the by-election or general elections, voters’ roll to be used complies with accepted voter
registration principles. ZESN urges the Commission to ensure that a single, consolidated,
complete and accurate voters’ roll for each Constituency is available in reasonable time
before the election date.
6.3 Analysis of the Marondera Central Voters’ Rolls
ZESN noted the use of two voters’ rolls in the Marondera Central by-election i.e. the polling
station based voters’ rolls and a supplementary roll based on the previous ward based
voters’ rolls. The Main Register for Marondera Central had 18,624 registered voters of
whom 10,858 voters were female representing 58.30% of the total number of voters and
7,766 males who are 41.70% of the total number or registered voters. The Supplementary
register for Marondera Central however had 18,956 registered voters of whom 9,338 were
female representing 49.26% of the total registered voters the remaining 9,618 voters are
male who represent 50.74% of the total number of voters registered.
Emerging issues from the two Voters’ Rolls
ZESN noted that there are 7,554 unchanged records in the main voters’ roll and 19,334
records which were in the 2013 register and not in the main voters’ roll which can be
attributed to out-migration, deceased voters or a general lack of interest in electoral
processes. New registrants in the main voters’ roll which were not in the 2013 voters’ roll
stand at 11,070. In the supplementary voters’ roll there are 19,229 voters who were in the
2013 voters’ roll and not in the Main polling station-based voters’ rolls. A comparison
between the 2013 harmonised elections voters’ roll and the Merged (Main + Supplementary
rolls) it is evident that there was an increase of registered voters from 31,340 in 2013 to
38,825 in 2015. There is a significant number of typographical errors, numerical data in
names and invalid names in the voters’ rolls that ZESN analysed revealing that there wasn’t
adequate quality control and validation process of the rolls.
7. ELECTION CAMPAIGNS
The continued elections boycott by the MDC formations means that ZANU-PF was the only
contesting party which is currently benefiting from funding for political parties from
Treasury as provided for in Section 3 (3) of the Political Parties Finances Act[Chapter 2:11].
This contributed to the creation of an uneven playing field as other parties could not
compete on an equal footing resulting in the by-elections being poorly contested as
contesting parties were not able to mount effective election campaigns.
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