Wednesday set as Nomination court day for council elections

By Tichaona Sibanda
18 September 2006

The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) has set September 20th as the new date for the nomination court for the rural district council elections.

Initially the nomination court was supposed to sit last week Friday but was postponed for undisclosed reasons. Joel Gabuza, MDC legislator for Binga in Matebeleland North, believes the cash strapped regime is finding it difficult to run the elections.

He said in his district alone election officials are having to walk long distances because of transport shortages. In all, 59 rural district council elections, involving 1600 wards, are set to have elections on October 28th.

Despite the nomination court date being moved, the inspection of the voter’s roll closed last week Thursday. Gabuza said in previous years they were given ample time to go through the voter’s role, but this time people were only given four days to do so.

All candidates for the local government polls are being required to pay

Z$2 000 as clearance fees to the police. Many opposition officials believe this money would be channelled towards running the elections themselves.

‘It’s an open secret to everyone that this government has no money. Instead of government doing its duty to fund the elections, aspiring candidates are being asked to fund the exercise on behalf of the regime,’ said Gabuza.

In Binga, the Tsvangirai led MDC controls the council with 17 seats while Zanu (PF) has 5. Gabuza said he feels confident they will win the 5 seats under Zanu (PF). In the last elections, the MDC lost the seats by a margin of one or two votes in all five wards.

‘We have done our homework. We have put our house in order so we are ready to wrestle the seats from Zanu (PF),’ Gabuza said.

Reports from other provinces suggest both factions of the MDC are confident of springing surprises in the forthcoming election, with officials from both saying they had covered sufficient ground in preparation for the elections.