via MDC finally gets voters’ roll – DailyNews Live 15 March 2015 by Lloyd Mbiba
HARARE – Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC says Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) has given them the voters’ roll, after the party vowed not to participate in any election without studying the electoral document.
Douglas Mwonzora, MDC secretary-general, told the Daily News yesterday that Zec director Rita Makarau wrote to him asking him to come and collect the voters’ roll.
“ZEC wrote me to come and collect the voters’ roll for the Chirimanzu-Zibagwe and MT Darwin by-elections. I will go and collect the document and we will study it,” said Mwonzora.
However, Mwonzora said the release of the document did not mean that his party will participate in the by-elections.
“As l have said we will study the document and come back to you. But our congress last year made a resolution that we will not participate in any election without reforms. We do not only want the voters’ roll but all electoral reforms before we participate in any elections,” he said.
Efforts to get a comment from Makarau proved futile as her mobile phone was unreachable.
Opposition parties have demanded that Zec furnishes them with an electronic version of the voters’ roll before they can participate in the by-elections pencilled for month-end.
The constituencies fell vacant following the re-appointment of Joice Mujuru, the Mt Darwin West lawmaker as vice president in 2013 and her subsequent replacement by Emmerson Mnangagwa, the Chirimanzu-Zibagwe MP last month.
Major opposition parties have indicated they would boycott the elections if the voter register was not availed.
This week in Bulawayo, Tsvangirai said his party will not be taking part in any election in the country until the government makes electoral reforms demanded by his party.
“We’ve stated a position, we’ve a congress resolution that unless we’ve reforms, we can’t participate to legitimise an election and that’s the position of the party. We can’t participate unless there are reforms,” Tsvangirai told reporters at the Bulawayo Press Club on Wednesday night.
The MDC leader also said he will not participate in by-elections of recalled 21 legislators and senators who broke away from his party to form the MDC Renewal.
COMMENTS
This is a small step and an important one. At least the roll is now releasable.
What MDC must now do is make sure they get the 2013 voters roll and then compare that with the 2015 one that they have been given.
If they don’t get the 2013 one, then they must go on the ground and collect a sample of names of people who died or moved from the constituency say in 2010, they must make sure that the names are not on the voters roll they have been given.
The idea is that ZEC must come with its own clean voters roll. They should not use any of Mudede’s rolls because they were stacked with non-existent voters who are then used for rigging purposes. If ZEC are just adding new names to Mudede’s roll without updating the roll thoroughly then we are back to square one or even worse.
Its better to get across these things now because I think Zanu PF wants to use the roll for rigging in the next elections because that’s the only way they can win.