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Rumbidzai Mbewe, Sunday News Correspondent
MORE than 6 000 “aliens” failed to register during the Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) exercise due to failure to produce long birth certificates.
Despite the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) coming up with a mop up exercise meant to cater for people who had failed to register in the earlier voter registration which ended 19 December last year, Civil Society Organisations (CSO) have revealed that more than 6 000 aliens failed to register for this year’s harmonised elections.
The mop up exercise which began on 10 January ended on Thursday last week. The Election Resource Centre (ERC), Heal Zimbabwe Trust (HZT), Women Institute in Leadership Development (WILD), National Youth for Development Trust (NYDT) and Christian Alliance who are part of the CSO said the mop up exercise was meant to increase access by citizens particularly former aliens.
The organisations noted limited changes regarding the administration of the voter registration mop up exercise. Election Resource Centre executive director Mr Tawanda Chimhini confirmed the statistics.
“The CSOs note limited changes regarding administration of the voter registration mop up exercise.
“While the mop up exercise was meant to increase access by citizens particularly former aliens, over 6 000 of such people have so far been turned away on the basis of failing to submit long birth certificates,” he said.
However, he said there was a significant increase in voter registration figures over the last three weeks despite the challenges that people went through to register.
“The overwhelming response to the voter registration mop up exercise, which has seen over 260 000 new registrants, is a reflection of citizen’s
willingness to participate in the forthcoming elections. However, more needs to be done for people to register to vote,” he said.
A significant number of people in Bulawayo could not register because they did not have documentation and as of 7 February 2018, 161 people had been turned away.
Women Institute in Leadership Development director Ms Samkeliso Khumalo said it was shocking that a lot of people in the city were not documented.
“It is quite scary that a lot of people do not have national identity documents as well as birth certificates and these are adults. This means that their children are not documented. Access to documentation such as birth certificates and National IDs is necessary for voter registration,” she said.
Sunday News also spoke to some of the people who were turned away from registering because of inadequate documentation.
Mrs Mable Chisale of Old Magwegwe said: “My children were born in Zimbabwe and I have worked in this country for a long time.
“Now that I want to exercise my right they tell me I should produce a long birth certificate which I do not have,” she said.
Mr Alpheous Banda from Lobengula who was also turned away said he has been trying to acquire a long birth certificate but the registry office has not been of assistance. He said their issue needed to be solved as they wanted to vote this year.-@rumbie_mbewe
Online Reporter