Local authorities urged to prepare for delimitation exercise

Sukulwenkosi Dube-Matutu, Chronicle Reporter
LOCAL authorities have been urged to name outstanding streets and suburbs in their jurisdictions ahead of the delimitation exercise as the country prepares for the holding of general elections next year.

Provinces and districts have also been urged to come up with clearly defined boundary descriptions of their areas of jurisdiction in preparation for the delimitation exercise.

Some suburbs do not have formal names while some streets remain unnamed, especially in high density suburbs, which makes it difficult to capture residents’ full information.

Some local authorities and districts are at conflict over boundaries in their areas.

Delimitation, which is carried out after a population census and is provided for in Sections 160 and 161 of the Constitution, refers to the dividing of the country into constituencies and wards for the purposes of elections and involves coming up with a minimum threshold of registered voters in each of the country’s 210 National Assembly constituencies.

The exercise could see constituencies with a low number of registered voters being merged with others while those with a high number could be split, subject to the number of registered voters.

The numbers of voters in each province will be used for the delimitation exercise that will determine the number of constituencies.

The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) conducted phase 1 and 2 of its mobile voter registration which it concluded in February and April this year respectively ahead of the delimitation exercise.

The number of eligible voters, who registered for the first time during the second phase of Zec mobile biometric voter registration (BVR) blitz increased by 100 percent compared with those who registered in the first phase. The second phase of the voter registration blitz, which ran from April 11 to 30, saw a total 109 405 people registering to voter in next year’s harmonised elections.

Section 161 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe obliges Zec to conduct delimitation of the electoral boundaries once every 10 years soon after the conduct of a population census.

For purposes of the boundary delimitation, the voters’ roll was closed on May 30.

Voter registration shall, however, remain open for purposes on any by-election that may become necessary and the 2023 harmonised elections.

In terms of Section 161 (7) of the Constitution, at the conclusion of delimitation, Zec shall produce and submit to the President a preliminary report.

The report shall contain a list of the wards and constituencies, with the names assigned to each and a description of their boundaries, a map showing the wards and constituencies and any further information or particulars which the commission considers necessary.

Addressing stakeholders during a preparatory meeting for delimitation exercise in Gwanda on Tuesday, Matabeleland South provincial elections officer Mr Rabson Nyoni said there were some disputes over boundaries in the province and relevant stakeholders had to resolve them.

“At the time of delimitation, Zec will request for boundaries for each local authority, boundaries of each district and boundaries of each province. We need to have a clearly defined boundary for each local authority which will help us know where the jurisdiction of each local authority starts and ends,” he said.

“We also need to have a clear boundary of each province and district. The issue of boundaries is very sensitive as you will find two different local authorities or districts claiming that a certain area falls under their jurisdiction.”

He said local authorities were also supposed to identify the number of wards they want to add in their areas following the establishment of new settlement areas and suburbs after 2008.

Mr Nyoni said going into the delimitation exercise, it is important for every citizen to have full details of their address including the name of the street and suburb. He said some streets and suburbs remain unnamed.

“A major challenge we faced when we were delimiting in 2008 is that some roads, streets and suburbs don’t have names. Stakeholders who have interest in the voter’s roll are questioning why we have people with unknown addresses. When our suburbs and streets are not named there is danger that some people will be left out in development,” he said. – @DubeMatutu