ZANU PF voter registrations starts Monday despite ongoing talks

By Violet Gonda
15 June 2007

The Registrar-General Tobaiwa Mudede announced on Wednesday that a mobile voter registration exercise would start on Monday. This is despite ongoing talks mediated by South Africa’s president Thabo Mbeki, which are supposed to lead to free and fair elections.

The opposition is calling for a new and independent electoral commission to conduct elections in Zimbabwe. The MDC has in previous elections accused the ruling party of using a fixed voters’ roll to rig elections. But ZANU PF seems to be going ahead with preparations for next year’s elections regardless, using the same tactics.

Mudede said the countrywide exercise, which would include the inspection of the voters roll would end in mid August. The opposition says this shows that ZANU PF is moving with ‘supersonic speed’ and is on ‘auto-cruise’ to rig election.

Nelson Chamisa the spokesperson of the Tsvangirai MDC said: “What we must understand is that rigging is not an event, it is a process and it is in that context that we in the MDC would view this as a gimmick to try and manipulate the election to produce a pre-determined outcome.”

Presidential and parliamentary elections are sheduled to be held concurrently next year, but the main opposition parties have threatened to boycott if the electoral environment is not free and fair.

The two main political parties are due to meet in South Africa this weekend to negotiate conditions leading to the elections, among other issues. Chamisa said: “And we have said we don’t want Mudede to have anything to do with the registration of voters. The registration of voters should be done by an independent electoral board which is agreed upon and this is what we have submitted to SADC through President Mbeki.”

Chamisa alleges the people who are to conduct Mudede’s voter registration exercise were thoroughly vetted to make sure they are “ZANU PF-compliant.”

Opposition parties have said people should just produce their identity cards and vote on the basis of these identity cards as in 1980.

The opposition says it is not cast in stone that elections should be held by March, therefore there is
no need for the fast-track registration exercise. Stakeholders say there is sufficient time to agree on the fundamental framework within which the elections should be held. Chamisa added: “But this kind of arrogance, this kind of defiance and unilateralism being done and being shown by ZANU PF clearly shows and continues to rupture and undermine the confidence people are supposed to have in the electoral process.”