Source: MDC to deploy polling agents – DailyNews Live
STAFF WRITER 20 June 2018
HARARE – The MDC plans to field agents in all polling stations during next
month’s election, the party’s organising secretary Amos Chibaya said.
Speaking to the Daily News yesterday, Chibaya said the move was targeted
at ensuring that the ruling Zanu PF will not “rig” the elections.
“Like any other year, we are going to field polling agents in every
polling station. We want to stop Zanu PF from rigging this election. Our
agents are going to alert us on every move,” he said.
On Monday, Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) said it will allow
political parties to have “roving” election agents who will move from one
polling station to another, observing the conduct of the elections.
In previous elections, election agents were only allowed to observe one
polling station.
“To be eligible to appoint roving agents a political party must have
supplied the stated lists of office bearers in the period starting from
the fourth day after the publication of the proclamation and ending two
days before the sitting of the nomination courts, that is, the period from
June 3 -12, 2018,” Zec said.
MDC has failed to dislodge Zanu PF in four elections, although none of
them were free or fair, according to the MDC and Western observers.
Former president Robert Mugabe denies MDC allegations that his Zanu PF has
cheated the MDC of victory in four major elections since 2000.
The late MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai was urged not to contest in the 2013
elections because many of the electoral reforms he had asked for had not
been implemented, but he went on to participate and controversially lost
to Mugabe.
The MDC has said it will not repeat that mistake. It remains the biggest
challenge to Zanu PF’s continued hold on power.
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