admin
Harare Bureau
MEMBERS of the security forces and election officials who could not vote under special voting on Sunday and Monday will still be able to exercise their right as they have been allowed to vote during normal polling on 31 July, Zimbabwe Electoral Commission chairperson, Justice Rita Makarau said yesterday.
Hundreds of people mainly civil servants and police details failed to cast their votes at the close of polling on Monday midnight creating anxiety on what recourse they would have from electoral authorities.
In a statement last night, Justice Makarau said a lot of special voters were unable to cast their votes owing to logistical challenges.
She said a substantial number of members of the disciplined forces and ZEC electoral officers were unable to vote because their ballot papers did not reach their voting centres before the close of special polling or had failed to reach the centres altogether.
“This means that all the persons who were entitled to use the special vote were deprived of their right to vote in the harmonised elections due to the logistical challenges that the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission experienced in the printing of ballot papers,” said Justice Makarau.
“The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission will therefore ensure that all persons who were deprived of the opportunity to vote between 14 and 15 July 2013 will be able to vote on 31 July 2013 when the rest of the electorate votes.
“To this end, only the names of those who actually cast ballots during the special vote will be deleted from the ward voters’ rolls that will be used for polling on 31 July 2013.
“Lists of those officers who voted on 14 and 15 July 2013 and those who failed to cast their ballots will be open for public inspection at the offices of the Chief Elections Officer.”
Thousands of police officers and civil servants gathered at various voting centres yesterday in anticipation that they would be allowed to cast their votes.
By midmorning more than 200 police officers gathered at Town House in central Harare.
They were sitting waiting to be told if there was any recourse to their plight.
It was at around 1100hours when their superiors arrived and directed that their names be taken down for further enquiries to find out what could be done.
Most of them could be heard grumbling in frustration.
The previous night anti-riot had to be called at Town House to quell restless police details who tried to force their way after realising that the midnight deadline was fast approaching before they could cast their votes. They were frustrated at the slow distribution of ballot papers.
Government created special voting platform to afford those who would be deployed on normal voting day to cast their votes before they leave to their respective centres.
ZEC said it issued out 120 000 applications for special voting and only 87 000 were returned, the bulk of which were from the police force.
MDC-T secretary general Mr Tendai Biti yesterday blamed the problems that characterised special voting on a “hidden hand” and sought to discredit the forthcoming elections by making unsubstantiated claims of violence.
Mr Biti was addressing a press conference at his party’s headquarters, Harvest House in Harare.
“The way we see (it) is that there is an absence of leadership and to be fair it is not the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission’s fault,” said Mr Biti.
However, ZEC deputy chairperson Mrs Joice Kazembe on Sunday said that the multiple court challenges by the MDC formations on the results of the nomination courts that sat last month had caused delays in the printing of ballots.
The Electoral Courts only cleared the cases on Friday.
Treasury, which falls under Mr Biti’s Finance Ministry, has also not provided adequate funding to ZEC for the elections.
Online Reporter