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Nqobile Tshili, Chronicle Correspondent
Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) chairperson, Justice Priscilla Chigumba has said the proliferation of political parties ahead of harmonised elections is a testimony of thriving democracy in the country.
In an interview at Zec’s Zimbabwe International Trade Fair stand last week, Justice Chigumba said 127 political parties have registered to participate in the coming elections.
She said more political parties may mushroom proving the country’s democratic structures.
“In fact there are now 127 (political parties) and I’m confident that we will see a few more before we go into elections. It’s not for Zec to think whether this is right or whether this is productive for Zimbabwe. We as Zec, as the administrative body, merely administer the law. Our law allows proliferation of political parties. It is the way in which our democracy is structured,” she said.
Justice Chigumba said the mushrooming of political parties has always been synonymous with the period leading to the country’s elections.
She said she was however, confident that some of political parties that have registered with Zec will not meet the requirements of the Nomination Court.
“What I do want to say though is that traditionally, around every election cycle we see an upsurge of these political parties. But when we get to the Nomination Court a lot of them fall by the wayside because they will not be able to meet the Nomination Court requirements,” she said.
“The fact that we have 127 political parties doesn’t mean we are going to have 127 political parties on the ballot paper. That’s a misconception. Only those political parties, only those candidates who will have fulfilled the requirements of the Nomination Court will appear on the ballot paper and I don’t think they will be more than 10.”
Justice Chigumba said the electoral body is not concerned about individuals and parties who are sounding their intentions to participate in coming elections.
She said only those who will satisfy Nomination Court requirements will be considered.
Justice Chigumba said the electoral body was well on course with its elections roadmap and is in the process of procuring election materials.
“The commission is very well prepared as we go into the 2018 harmonised elections. In terms of where we are at the moment we are doing de-duplication of double registrants from the voters’ list which we obtained from the biometric voter registration exercise,” said Justice Chigumba.
“We are also in the process of procuring election materials, we are doing training of those who are going to train voter educators and in terms of roadmap what we are looking to do at the moment is to produce the provisional voters’ list for the inspection which is the next stage of our process.”
She said Government has also availed adequate funds enabling Zec to prepare a provisional voters’ roll, its inspection and voter education.
“We are quite pleased and at the moment I can’t say we are facing a lot of challenges. The de-duplication is an ongoing process that is also in parallel of the provisional voters’ roll,” she said.
On Sunday, Zec announced that a provisional voters’ roll will be availed for public inspection at polling stations countrywide between May 19 and 29.
The stations will be published in the media and the Zec website in due course.
The electoral commission urged members of the public to inspect the roll and ensure mistakes made on their registration are corrected, to avoid disappointment on the day they cast their ballots.
@nqotshili
Online Reporter