ZEC admits voters' roll 'in shambles'

By Vusumuzi Sifile

THE Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) on Friday told journalists and observer teams the voters’ roll used in yesterday’s elections was “in shambles”, confirming claims by the opposition that the roll was “a mess”.

ZEC chairperson Justice George Chiweshe said although the roll was “not perfect”, he still believed it was “among the most credible” worldwide.“Throughout the world, voters’ rolls are never perfect,” he said. “Ours is not perfect either, but I can assure you it is one of the most credible . . . this voters’ roll which, mind you, is in shambles. I maintain it still is very credible, although it is not perfect,” said Chiweshe, a former military judge.

Last week, officials from the two MDC factions and independent candidate Simba Makoni’s group said they had unearthed more than 8 000 ghost voters who were said to be “ordinarily resident” at Glen Hat, an area near Hatcliffe extension in Harare North.Chiweshe said the ZEC was not in charge of the voters’ roll, which falls under the Registrar-General’s Office.The R-G, Tobaiwa Mudede, denied there were “ghost” voters.

“The question of ghosts coming to vote is always mentioned, but we have not seen one ghost coming to vote.”Chiweshe said the roll was in shambles mostly because they had not been officially notified of the deaths of certain people whose names still appear on the roll, many years after their death. In the run up to the election, opposition candidates produced a number of names of long deceased people still on the roll including former Minister of Law and Order, Desmond Lardner-Burke (1908-81). “Unless we receive official confirmation we will not presume that a person is dead. Deaths occur daily, and we will never catch up with them,” Chiweshe said.

As Zimbabweans wait for the outcome of the polls, the ZEC official responsible for polling, Ignatius Mushangwe, said preliminary results would be displayed at polling stations, but the official results would only be announced at the national collation centre.But the commission said it would not airlift any ballot boxes to Harare as previously alleged.

Two weeks ago, the Secretary for Elections in the Tsvangirai faction of the MDC, Ian Makone, said the roll was in “an awful mess”. At the time, ZEC did not respond to questions from The Standard on the allegations. Makone said the discrepancies could mean the delimitation report used to demarcate wards and constituencies “was based on false statistics”.