Voters’ roll watch

via Voters’ roll watch | The Zimbabwean 25 June 2014

Justice Mavedzenge, who filed an application at the High Court to have the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission publicly avail the electronic version of the voters’ roll, was still preparing his heads of argument at the time of going to print.

A trial date will then be set after which there will be a full hearing of the matter, where several prominent lawyers are expected to fight from the applicant’s corner.

ZEC says it is not in a position to avail the roll because its machines are broken down. It has also claimed that it is working on a fresh voters’ register but has not clarified if it would completely abandon the old roll.

However, it seems it might start from afresh following statements by the Registrar General of Voters, Tobaiwa Mudede, who earlier this year told Parliament that he had nothing to hand over to ZEC.

““There is nothing to handover, other than the function of registering voters,” said Mudede while responding to a question by an MP in Parliament. He added: “We have been in discussions with ZEC over the issue, but I would want to say here that in terms of the new Constitution, the RG is no longer the authority in terms of voter registration. I was the authority up to the general elections last year, but after that, the electoral commission is now the authority.”

Makarau supported his position.

“He (Mudede) was right because legally, we cannot force him to give us anything, except the function that was given to us by the Constitution. It is now up to us to see what we can do to operationalise the function.”