‘We are ready for elections’

This year’s harmonised elections will be held on August 23, after proclamation of the date by President Mnangagwa on Wednesday. Our reporter DEBRA MATABVU (DM) spoke to Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi (ZZ) on preparations for the polls, among a range of issues.

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DM: Following proclamation of the election date by President Mnangagwa, can you outline processes that are set to follow before polls are held?

ZZ: The proclamation is a process that sets out the timeline leading to the elections; it is the calendar for elections.

So, the proclamation will set in motion processes that lead to elections.

There are set timelines that are given in our laws once the proclamation is done, such as setting aside a certain number of days before the Nomination Court sits.

This is what the President adhered to; he strictly followed the law.

On June 21, we have the Nomination Court sitting to consider all those who want to contest the Presidential, National Assembly, proportional representation and local authority elections.

Thereafter, the date that was set for the election is August 23, which is on a Wednesday.

His Excellency, the President, has shifted the election date, which traditionally fell on weekends, to a midweek date.

The main reason is that on Fridays, we have some members of the Apostolic sects who go to church and on Saturdays, we have some churches such as the Seventh Day Adventist Church that strictly observe the Sabbath, as well as some Apostolic sects that also go to church.

Then on Sundays, we have other religious groups that also go to church.

This is why his Excellency decided that we should have the elections on a day when no one will be going to church, hence he decided that we have elections during a weekday.

After the elections, if there is need, the law says he must also fix a date for a rerun should the election be inconclusive, so he set out a date for a rerun.

The whole roadmap for the elections is there in the proclamation that was gazetted by his Excellency, the President.

DM: How does proclamation affect Bills, including the Electoral Amendment Bill, that are still before Parliament?

ZZ: When the President proclaims an election date, we cannot change any electoral laws.

So, effectively, we are not going to pass the Electoral Amendment Bill that is before Parliament.

However, the majority of amendments in the Bill are actually covered under the Constitution and in the current Act.

For example, the women’s quota that we extended; it was already provided for in our laws and we were already applying it since 2013.

The youth quota provision is there in the Constitution.

So, we have everything that we need, even if we do not pass the current Bill that is before Parliament.

There are sufficient legal provisions to ensure that we proceed with the elections without affecting any democratic processes.

We decided to proceed after the proclamation with the laws that are there, which we believe are sufficient.

In addition, at law, there is what is called the doctrine of necessity, which is when extraordinary actions by the administrative authority, which are designed to restore order or uphold fundamental constitutional principles, are considered to be lawful, even if such an action contravenes the established constitution, laws, norms or convention.

What has happened now is that we are good to go.

Again, in relation to the Electoral Amendment Bill, once the Bill passes all the stages of Parliament, we will prepare copies and pass them to the President and he will sign them.

However, what it means is that it will not apply for this election.

Immediately after the elections, if there is a by-election, it will, however, apply.

As Parliament, we are also rushing to finalise business of this current session.

Hence, we had suspended the automatic adjournment times and were working late into the night so that we clear the Government business that is before Parliament.

I am glad that the majority of the Bills are out of the way.

We will be finishing them and allowing our MPs to go out to campaign and not be laboured by Parliament business as they campaign.

DM: Which Bills remain outstanding on the order paper?

ZZ: The only Bills that are left are from the Ministry of Finance (and Economic Development) and Ministry of Health (and Child Care), and we hope to complete them next week (this week).

Otherwise, we have a clean order paper.

DM: Are you satisfied with electoral reforms that Government implemented over the last five years?

ZZ: I am very happy because our electoral laws, as they are, compare favourably with those in the region.

After the 2018 elections, we undertook several reforms that affect elections.

The first one was the repeal of POSA (Public Order and Security Act) and enactment of MOPA (Maintenance of Peace and Order Act).

People are not talking about it that much, but that Act alone impacts on how elections are done.

It was part of the process of reforming our laws to ensure that we have a favourable electoral playing field.

We then repealed the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) that affected the journalistic fraternity.

We unbundled it and repealed it to come up with other laws.

Again, that was aimed at ensuring that the playing field will be favourable to all players as we go to the elections, and we have done that.

We have also extended the women’s quota, (and) introduced the youth quota to broaden political participation.

We have also agreed on a lot of clauses in terms of the current Electoral Amendment Bill in Parliament.

We had several disagreements.

Some people were calling for the diaspora vote, but there was general agreement that it is not necessary now and we dropped it.

There were also some who were calling for prisoners to vote and accreditation of observers six months before the elections.

Several issues that were said to be electoral reforms were discussed yesterday (Thursday) and some were considered unnecessary.

For example, there is no need for anyone to be accredited six months before an election because there is no specific electoral activity during that time, and because accreditation is to simply allow access to the actual polling area.

Outside of that, no one has been barred from attending rallies, organising and attending political meetings.

Even foreign missions, if they are accredited, know what to do if they want to attend any function.

They are not barred.

The rest of the so-called reforms were tackled in Parliament and an agreement was reached on the amendments that should carry the day.

The amendments that won the day do not significantly impact negatively on the current electoral process.

So, we are good to go.

DM: How far has Parliament gone with the legislation of the provincial and metropolitan councils. Are we going to have elections for these councils this year?

ZZ: The Constitution enjoins us to ensure that we have elections for provincial and metropolitan councils.

So, the elections will go ahead.

What we will do is we will proceed to enact the enabling legislation that will give effect to the work of those councils.

So, the work of going through those elections is going to proceed.

What we now need after that is to ensure that we quickly put legislation in place that will create an enabling environment and give effect to what the provincial councils must do.

So, we will need legislation that will highlight what councils should do.

Even without that, it does not stop us from going for elections because the Constitution has already indicated that we should do that and we will proceed to have those elections.

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