Staff Writer
The Zimbabwe Election Support Network on Monday urged Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to be open, transparent, accountable and guarantee secrecy of the vote to enhance credibility of the electoral process.
In its pre-election statement, the network which promotes democratic elections in Zimbabwe, said peaceful and credible elections are essential for democracy to thrive.
“ZESN urges the government of Zimbabwe to adhere to the call made in October 2022 by the United Nations Special Rapporteurs for Member States to “take all necessary steps to establish conditions that allow national and international election observers to effectively do their work, and to protect them from any violence, threats, retaliation, adverse discrimination, pressure or any other arbitrary action as a consequence of their legitimate exercise of their rights and freedoms,” the network said.
Zimbabwe will hold its harmonised elections, namely; the Local Authority, National Assembly and the Presidential elections. The elections are being held under new electoral boundaries drawn by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) on 23 August 2023.
The 2023 delimitation was ZEC’s first delimitation process since 2008 when the last exercise was undertaken.
“The process and outcome was shrouded in controversies that included, the inadequate stakeholder engagements, reliance on a preliminary Census report (as opposed to the final report) and the formula applied in determining average voter population for each constituency.
“Following the release of the delimitation report, a court application was filed by a political party seeking the nullification or revision of the ZEC Delimitation report to make descriptions of boundaries clearer and to apply the correct formula in determining the average voter population for each constituency. The dismissal of the Court challenge means that Zimbabwe harmonised polls will be conducted under the newly delimited boundaries,” ZESN said.
“The Final Delimitation Report, gazetted in an extraordinary Government Gazette on the 20th of February 2023 as Proclamation 1 of 2023 (Statutory Instrument 14 of 2023), sets out the Boundaries of Zimbabwe for the purposes of the 23 August harmonised elections and any subsequent elections that may be conducted in the next ten years.”
In order to address the challenges in delimitation report, ZESN said, ZEC must in future predicate the delimitation exercise on final census report, not the preliminary reports, which often contain errors and mistakes that are corrected upon validation and prior to the production of the Final Report.
“The preliminary census report may not lead to results that reflect reality, thereby distorting representativeness,” ZESN said.
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