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The electoral body also shot down the party’s claims that voter educators in the just ended referendum were from one political interest.
In its national council resolution held last Wednesday, the MDC-T claimed that it wanted the accreditation committee to have participants from all political players. The party, in its latest round of demands, claimed that voter educators used in the referendum were only from Zanu-PF.
But ZEC chairperson, Justice Rita Makarau on Monday dismissed the claims, saying the accreditation committee was done in terms of the Electoral Act.
“The Accreditation Committee is a statutory Committee set up by the Commission in terms of Section 40H of the Electoral Act [Chapter 2:13]. Its composition is also not determined by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission but by the Electoral Act,” said Justice Makarau in a written response.
In terms of the Act, she said, the committee is made up of the chairperson of the commission who chairs it, ZEC deputy chairperson, one member designated by the commission, one person nominated by the Office of the President and Cabinet, one person nominated by the Minister of Justice and Legal Affairs.
It also includes one person nominated by the minister responsible for Foreign Affairs and one person nominated by the minister responsible for Immigration.
“In setting up the committee, the commission invites the relevant ministries to submit their nominees and after constitution, meetings are then called to deliberate on the applications that would have been received,” said Justice Makarau.
“The Accreditation Committee is a recommending committee and after its deliberations, it makes recommendations to the full commission for adoption or rejection. The final decision on all applications to accredit or deny accreditation is the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission’s decision and not of the Accreditation Committee.”
On voter educators, ZEC said during the referendum, voter education was conducted by two groups of voter educators.
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“The first group, deployed at two educators per ward, were recruited and appointed by the commission. The second group comprised of educators seconded by various non-governmental organisations which were invited to do so by the commission after they had applied to participate in the exercise. Both groups were however using the same material which was developed by the commission,” she said.
“The voter educators who were appointed by the commission were recruited from the Public Service Commission and were persons who had prior experience in voter education. The political affiliation of these civil servants was not requested. It was not disclosed or considered.”
She said in appointing voter educators and in developing voter education material for the referendum, the commission was guided by the provisions of the Electoral Act which mandates it to provide adequate, accurate and unbiased voter education.
“If there are instances where the voter educators exhibited incidence of bias in favour of any political party, these incidences were not brought to the attention of the commission. If such information is available, the commission would be grateful to have it so that such behaviour can be corrected during the training of voter educators for the forthcoming general elections,” she said.
Online Reporter