Vusumuzi DubeVusumuzi Dube, Online News Editor
ELIGIBLE voters can still register to participate in next year’s harmonised elections until two days after the President proclaims the election date.
Zimbabwe will hold harmonised elections next year and the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) has been embarking on various programmes meant to prepare for the elections.
The electoral body is in the process of delimitating the 210 constituency National Assembly seats for the 2023 polls in a manner that reflects the population distribution premised on latest census data.
Last week, the commission commenced the exercise for the inspection of the voters roll that will be used for the delimitation exercise.
The inspection exercise will end on 26 July.
In an interview with Sunday News, Zec spokesperson, Commissioner Jasper Mangwana revealed that the exercise is meant for the inspection of the voters roll as at 30 May 2022.
“For the harmonised elections, the voters roll will close two days after the proclamation of the elections by the President.
For this current exercise where we have opened the voters roll for inspection for the delimitation exercise, only those voters that were registered on or before 30 May and had their transfers effected during that time will be the only ones considered in the delimitation exercise.
“The purpose of the inspection of the voters roll is to allow members of the public to check if their names are appearing on the voters roll and to check if their details are correctly captured and if not, to correct such anomalies.
The electorate is advised to visit polling stations where they are registered to vote to inspect the voters’ roll or use the *265# or the BVR inspection portal,” said Comm Mangwana.
He said Zec will continue with voter education exercises revealing that this was reaping the benefits with over 200 000 new voters being registered in the blitz.
“Our offices have been open for registration and so far we have had two voter registration blitz of which we are happy with the figures that have come through to register, with over 200 000 new voters being recorded.
“For now people can still register to vote at all our offices right up to two days after the proclamation date if they want to participate in next year’s harmonised election, but we continue encouraging people to register and be able to exercise their democratic right,” said Commissioner Mangwana.
Questioned on the low figures in some provinces, Commissioner Mangwana said they had conducted a survey where a number of reasons were stated as reasons for not registering.
“There are varied reasons which came out from the survey where some people were saying they are just not interested in voting but we have used what we learnt during the survey to shape our voter education and encourage people to register.
We will continue informing the nation on the figures per province so that they get an understanding of the commission’s progress in terms of voter registration,” said the Zec spokesperson.
According to statistics provided by Zec, as of 10 July there are 5 804 975 registered voters in the country with Harare Metropolitan province having the highest number of 950 520, followed by Midlands which has 763 028 voters and Manicaland with 738 627 voters has the third highest registered voters.
Mashonaland West has 661 398 voters, Mashonaland East; 641 701, Masvingo; 632 324, and Mashonaland Central has 532 450 registered voters.
Matabeleland North has the third lowest number of registered voters at340 405, Bulawayo has the second lowest with 270 914, while Matabeleland South has the lowest number of registered voters at 267 808.
Online Reporter