Source: Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN)
The Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) calls upon the government to avail funding to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) to conduct the bio-metric polling station based voter registration and to come up with a fresh voters’ roll.
The Sunday Mail 15 January 2017 has reported that ZEC has acquired USD30 million for the Bio-metric Voter Registration (BVR) process. ZESN has learnt with concern that government has not yet availed its share of financial support apart from the USD9,8 million allocated to the Commission by the Treasury end of 2016 against a total budget requirement of USD50 million for the BVR process alone. Government had pledged USD17 million while other development partners through the UNDP pledged the balance. The bio-metric polling station based voter registration process is supposed to be financed jointly by the government of Zimbabwe and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
In the 2016 national budget, the government allocated a paltry USD8,3 million to ZEC, which was far short from the USD29 million that the Commission had requested to enable it to acquire vehicles for the voter registration exercise. ZESN is concerned by the government’s lack of financial commitment to ZEC’s requests. “ZEC has always faced perennial financial constraints and this is extremely worrying. We have noted from our recent observation of by-elections that a number of electoral processes are being undertaken with inadequate funding and voter education programmes are one of those processes that have been seriously affected”, said Rindai Chipfunde Vava, ZESN Director.
Section 239 (c), (d) and (e) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe mandates ZEC to register voters, compile the voters’ rolls as well as ensure proper custody and maintenance of the voters’ rolls. With the polling station based voters’ roll one can only vote at one specific polling station where his/her name appears in the voters’ roll unless where exceptions apply. Given these powers and mandate enshrined in the Constitution, ZESN urges the government to ensure that ZEC is sufficiently and timeously resourced with technical, financial and human resources.
ZESN therefore calls upon the government to seriously commit to this process which commenced last year with the mapping exercise. In addition ZEC and UNDP flighted a tender inviting potential local and international companies to supply the Bio-metric Voter Registration (BVR) kits an indication that there is no going back with BVR. The public advertisement indicate that the tender will close on 17 January 2017.
As Zimbabwe prepares for the harmonised elections scheduled for 2018, a comprehensive voters’ roll will contribute immensely to the credibility of these elections hence the need for the government and ZEC to take this process seriously. Furthermore, ZEC should open up all electoral processes to observers and other key electoral stakeholders for scrutiny. In the case of the BVR process, observers should be invited to observe the tendering, procurement, deployment, data recovery procedures, de-duplication amongst other key BVR processes. This will enhance the confidence of stakeholders in the process and improve ZEC’s accountability and transparency.
The BVR process will be one of the key electoral process which will culminate in the creation of a fresh voters’ roll for Zimbabwe if done properly and in line with regionally and internationally recognised principles such as inclusivity, accuracy, comprehensiveness and completeness.
ZESN reiterates its calls to the government to timeously avail its funding to the Commission to enable it to execute its mandated roles.
Source: Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN)