Chinamasa speaks on Special Vote

the mechanism through amendments to the Electoral Act last year.

“All in all I think that Zec (Zimbabwe Electoral Commission) did well in the circumstances,” said Minister Chinamasa. “I would like to put the blame squarely on the flawed legal architecture of the Special Vote and for that flawed legal architecture on the Special Vote the blame should be put squarely on the negotiators, including myself, who negotiated this mechanism.

“I feel very embarrassed that when you put it on the ground when you try to implement it the practical challenges were clearly not thought through. If we had thought it through it would have been very clear that this was an impractical innovation we were putting into our law.”

Before the adoption of the Special Vote, members of the police and other uniformed forces involved in security operations during the elections would vote through the Postal Vote but the MDC formations raised issues about its transparency.

“We were trying to address the problem which was being raised by the MDC formations that the Postal Vote was not being transparently done but instead of keeping the Postal Vote but incorporating transparent into it we then scrapped it and that is the mistake we made,” he said.

Members of the disciplined forces voted on Sunday and Monday under the Special Vote but only 29 000 people out of the 69 000 that had been approved to vote were able to cast their ballots. The process was marred by late delivery or non-delivery of ballots at most centres. Under the Special Vote the eligible members cast their ballots at the various places they are stationed. The ballots will then be transmitted to the areas that they registered in and will be counted together with those that will be cast on July 31.
Minister Chinamasa also raised concern in the manner the printers awarded the tender to print the ballots acted.

“There are a number of factors that are attributed to the situation that developed (on Sunday and Monday) and one of these is that of the companies (Fidelity Printers and Printflow) that were awarded the tenders to print the ballots,” he said.
The Minister said it was difficult to understand that companies which printed the ballots in 2008 were unable to do so for only 69 000 voters.

“You will appreciate that in 2008 we had senatorial constituencies, local authority constituencies, presidential and house of assembly constituencies. So we had four ballots that had to be printed and they managed to do so successfully without any headache.

“This time around not withstanding that we were only talking about 69 000 eligible voters to exercise the Special Vote somehow the printing capacity vanished and it raises a lot of suspicion but I would obviously at this time not want to go into the matter,” he said.

Minister Chinamasa dismissed the challenge by the MDC-T to invalidate the votes cast during the Special Vote.
“They voted they exercised their right to vote. Their votes are very valid and legitimate,” he said.

“Our concern as Zanu PF is that those who failed to exercise their vote but who were entitled to exercise their vote should be given a facility to vote on the 31st of July so that they are not disenfranchised.”

He, however, refused to discuss the legal issues that have been raised in some quarters that people eligible to vote under the Special Vote cannot exercise their right in normal voting processes in terms of the law.

“I do not want to address legal issues that is what the Electoral Court is and Zec is there for. It is for Zec to determine what can be done,” he said.
Meanwhile, President Mugabe told a Zanu PF rally in Chinhoyi yesterday said Government would look into the issue in an effort to address it. “Iyo tichaiongorora tigoona kuti haingagadziriswe here,” he said.

On Wednesday Zec chairperson Justice Rita Makarau indicated that all those who failed to vote during the Special Vote would be restored to the ordinary voters’ roll so that they would be able to exercise their right on July 31.

Zec will today open the Special Vote packages received from the 209 polling stations at the National Command Centre at the Harare International Conference Centre. Zec chief elections officer Mr Lovemore Sekeramayi said candidates contesting the elections or their chief elections agents are free to come and observe the process.