THE MDC says thousands of voters were displaced from their constituencies during the clean-up exercise

HARARE – The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) has turned down an opposition request for an all-party meeting to discuss voter registration and demarcation of voting constituencies for next year’s polls, ZimOnline has learnt. 

ZEC chief elections officer Lovemore Sekeramayi told the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) opposition party that there was no justification to call a meeting of the multi-party liaison committee because the matters the opposition was raising were discussed at previous meetings. 

“We are of the view that the issues you propose to be discussed are issues that have already been discussed and for which concerns of the various stakeholders have been noted,” wrote Sekeramayi in an October 29 letter to the MDC and signed on his behalf by ZEC spokesman Utolile Silaigwana.  

The MDC, which says an audit of the voters’ roll by the party had unearthed anomalies on the register, wanted an all-party meeting to discuss civic education and a publicity campaign to raise voter awareness of an extended registration exercise. 

The MDC, that claims some voters displaced during a government slum clearing campaign were still appearing under their old constituencies, has also raised concern that a new electoral commission has not been appointed in line with Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment Number 18. 

“We condemn the action by ZEC to refuse to convene an all-party meeting on the serious issues that have a bearing on election results,” said Ian Makone, director of elections in the main faction of the MDC led by Morgan Tsvangirai. 

There is no love lost between the ZEC and the MDC. The opposition party often accuses the commission of favouring the ruling ZANU PF party – a factor that will probably make squabble-free elections in Zimbabwe hard to achieve even as ZANU PF and the MDC discuss ways to ensure truly democratic polls next year. 

"Since Murambatsvina, the voters’ roll has not been updated and for delimitation of constituencies to proceed under the current roll makes the whole process a farce,” he said. 

Operation Murambatsvina is the official name of President Robert Mugabe’s controversial urban clean-up campaign in 2005 that a United Nations envoy said displaced 750 000 people and indirectly affected another 2.4 million out of the 12 million Zimbabweans. 

Makone said constitutional amendment enacted with backing from the MDC required that a new commission and not a “sanitised” version of the existing one be appointed to register voters, demarcate constituencies and oversee preparations for next year’s elections. 

He said: “The constitutional amendment provides for a new electoral commission. A new commission must therefore be appointed instead of sanitising the existing commission.” 

Zimbabwe’s voters’ roll has been in shambles for years with millions of names of voters who died or left the country to live abroad still appearing on the register, while thousands more voters have failed to vote in previous polls either because their names were entered in wrong constituencies or did not appear at all on the register. 

The MDC has in the past accused the government of taking advantage of the lack of accurate figures on the number of voters to rig polls and of gerrymandering constituencies to ensure it wins. The government denies rigging elections. 

The MDC and ZANU PF are engaged in talks under South African mediation aimed at resolving Zimbabwe’s political and economic crisis. A key objective of the talks is to ensure next year’s polls are free and fair. - ZimOnline