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Senior Reporter
Government has started aligning laws with the new national Constitution after the gazetting of the Electoral Amendment Bill, H.B 7, 2013 that will amend the Electoral Act so that it conforms with the dictates of the new supreme law.The Bill was published in yesterday’s Government Gazette under General Notice 2 of 2014.
The country adopted the new Constitution at a referendum held in March last year with President Mugabe subsequently signing the document to become the new supreme law of the country, replacing the old Lancaster House Constitution.
The Bill seeks to address a number of issues that include double nomination of candidates that has affected political parties in the past as a number of them have fielded more than one contestant in a constituency
According to the memorandum, the Bill seeks to, “institute a system of designation by political parties (through the commission) of political party office-bearers at the national and provincial level, which office bearers will be empowered to certify nomination papers and other electoral documents to avoid the double or multiple nomination of political party candidates”.
The other amendments related to the election of 60 senators under the indirect party list, the 60 women members of the National Assembly and 80 members of the non-metropolitan provincial councils.
Under the new Constitution senators are now elected under a party list system while a new provision for the election of 60 women National Assembly members to run for the next 10 years was also included as ways of increasing their participation in decision-making.
The Bill will also “institute a procedure for the advance submission by political parties of nomination papers for constituency and party list candidates and their scrutiny by the Commission before the actual nomination process”.
The Bill also seek to clarify the process of transmission of results from the polling station to the National Command Centre particularly to ensure that duplicate copies of the polling station returns gathered from every polling station within a ward must be transmitted directly to the command centre at the same time as they are submitted to the appropriate ward centres.
The Bill also seeks to reduce the number of nominators needed for candidates competing in the National Assembly elections from 10 to five.
The Bill if adopted by Parliament will also increase from one to two, the number of election agents who are permitted to be in the immediate vicinity of a polling station, either one of whom may relieve an election agent within a polling station.
Elections observers will also be required to apply for accreditation no later than the fourth day before the general elections while a dual system of accreditation at the national level (for foreign observers) and at the provincial level (for local observers) will be introduced.
The new Act will also provide for the election of two senators to represent the interests of the disabled in accordance with the provision of the new Constitution.
The Bill also seeks to correct any other anomalies and discrepancies in the Electoral Act and make any other amendments that many not conform to the provisions of the constitution.
Meanwhile, the Finance and Appropriation Bills to operationalise the Budget presented by Finance and Economic Development Minister Patrick Chinamasa last month were also gazetted yesterday.
Parliament is expected to debate the Budget when it resumes sitting on January 27.
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