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Senior Reporter
Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi has prescribed 119 associations and institutions that may nominate persons that will form the electoral college to fill Senate seats for senators elected to represent persons with disabilities.
The list of the 90 associations and 19 institutions was published in Statutory Instrument 133 of 2023 cited as Electoral (Prescribed Associations and Institutions) Notice, 2023.
The Constitution and the Electoral Act provide for the election of two Senate representatives, a male and a female, for people living with disabilities.
Minister Ziyambi prescribed the list of the associations and institutions after consultations with the Minister of Labour, Public Service and Social Welfare, Professor Paul Mavima.
“The Minister prescribes the associations and institutions listed in the Schedule as associations and institutions which may submit nominations to the National Disability Board, established in terms of section 4 of the Disabled Persons Act [Chapter 17:01], to be delegates at the Electoral College constituted in terms of paragraph 3 of the Seventh Schedule to the Act,” reads part of SI 133.
The minister added that in conformity with provisions of the Seventh Schedule to the Electoral Act, “each prescribed association or institution must, in the form prescribed in the Second Schedule of the Act, nominate four (two women and two men) electoral college delegates, in the case of an association referred to in Part I of the Schedule, or two (one woman and one man) electoral college delegates, in the case of an institution or trust referred to in Part II of the Schedule.”
Examples of associations for the disabled include Jairos Jiri Association, Disability Network Goromonzi, Disability Rights Agenda for Transformation, Disability Youth Advocacy Network in Zimbabwe and Disabled Helping Hand Association while the institutions include Danhiko Project, Dorothy Duncan Centre for the Blind and Physically Handicapped and Emerald Hill Children School for the Deaf among others.
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