adminagainst eligible voters. According to statistics released by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission — there are 6 740 925 eligible voters in the country.
Registrar-General of Voters, Mr Tobaiwa Mudede, yesterday said after the national mobile registration closed, there were over 6, 4 million registered voters’ roll.
The office embarked on a 30-day registration exercise that ran between June 10 and July 09 in line with the provisions of the new constitution. Mr Mudede said 747 928 new voters were registered under the exercise while 234 354 were transferred from previous wards to current wards where they want to cast their ballots at the July 31 poll.
“The number of people who inspected the voters roll are 860 389, national identity cards issued are 492 429. Birth certificates that were issued are 143 420. The death certificates we issued are 16 859. The total voter population to participate in the 2013 harmonised elections is 6, 4 million.”
Mr Mudede said his office was expeditiously printing the voters roll to make sure they are disbursed to the wards throughout the country on time. Some quasi-political groupings masquerading as non-governmental organisations have been claiming that the voters’ roll was in shambles.
The Research and Advocacy Unit has been claiming that about 2 million eligible voters under 30 years of age were not registered and this has been parroted by the MDC-T.
It also claimed that there were over one million people on the voters’ roll who were either deceased or departed. But analysts say African countries have young populations, meaning that about 40 percent of the total population may be under 18 years of years making them ineligible to vote, while European countries have older populations.
Another bogus voters’ roll being run on the website www.myzimvote.com has been claiming to give accurate information about citizens’ registration status.
The online “voters’ roll” is being run in conjunction with the controversial Institute for a Democratic Alternative for Zimbabwe (IDAZIM), a quasi-political grouping linked to the MDC-T and whose officials are currently in court facing charges of impersonating police officers. Mr Mudede said the organisations sought to discredit the voters’ roll by misleading the electorate.
He said his office has approached the courts seeking an interdict against one of the NGOs.
“We are not going to sit and watch them. The problem we are facing in the manipulation of the voters’ roll is that we are having some figures mis-posted. What I am saying is that you are registered in ward 10 but on their website you appear on ward 11.
“We have already checked on our system and we are finding that. We are warning our people, advising them that they should not rely on the information they are getting on these websites. We have registered them.
“They have inspected the voters’ roll and they have been told where they belong in the respective wards.
“We do not want a situation where we go to the elections and find there are people who have been misplaced somewhere else after having read the information from these websites. So they should not rely on the websites. They should rely on the voters’ roll that we have given them,” said Mr Mudede.
The RG dismissed claims by some sections that his office sought to rig the elections through the voters’ roll.
He said claims of rigging had become an electoral fighting weapon throughout the world. “We have invited political parties to come and inspect our system, they have come, they have gone without queries.
“We have invited very senior people in Government, they have come and seen it. In the past we have invited members of the African Union, they have seen our system,” he said.
Online Reporter