Cabinet tackles voter registration chaos
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
May 31, 2013 in News
VOTER registration, now a standing cabinet agenda item, once again dominated
the government policy-making body meeting this week, resulting in Justice
Minister Patrick Chinamsa, Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) chairperson
Rita Makarau, and Registrar General (RG) Tobaiwa Mudede being instructed to
meet to deal with the issue threatening to throw the electoral process into
chaos.
Report by Brian Chitemba
Chinamasa, Mudede and Makarau were expected to meet yesterday to find ways
of smoothening voter registration which is increasingly becoming a
contentious issue ahead of crucial general elections.
The meeting was expected to take stock of all the problems which affected
the mobile voter registration exercise, discuss ways of how “aliens” will
get documents to enable them to register as voters as provided for by the
new constitution and look at plans to establish schools as registration
centres where headmasters will become commissioners of oath to allow all
Zimbabweans to be able to register.
Government is going to publish a consolidated plan of how voter registration
is going to unfold.
This comes ahead of the 30-day mandatory voter registration starting on
Monday after Finance minister Tendai Biti announced he has secured US$25
million for the exercise.
Voter registration has always been a big challenge in previous elections,
leading to Zanu PF being accused of using a shambolic voters’ roll to rig
elections.
Home Affairs co-Minister, Theresa Makone, recently reported to cabinet that
ordinary Zimbabweans were failing to register due to a number of bottlenecks
resulting in RG’s office being directed to replace lost identity documents
for all Zimbabweans free of charge until the last day of voter registration.
“Aliens” were recently cleared to get identity cards so that they can
register as voters, but despite the cabinet directive many people still
found it difficult to register and acquire documents with registry officials
being strict on issues such as proof of residence, among other stringent
demands.
The word “alien”, stamped on the minority’s identity, refers to anyone who
does not belong in the environment in which they are found or a person who
comes from a foreign country and does not owe allegiance to the country he
or she is in.
An electoral democracy lobby non-governmental organisation, Election
Resource Centre (ERC), says many people were still disenfranchised due to
the chaotic voter registration exercise.
ERC says the previous mobile registration process lacked awareness around
when and where the registration process was to take place. Voter awareness
was devoid of the intricate details relating to what type of services were
rendered by the mobile teams.
This resulted in a number of potential voters being turned away because they
would have visited the centres seeking to recover lost birth certificates
instead registering to vote.
Key government institutions, ERC notes, supposed to be complementing voter
registration teams seem to be unaware of their responsibilities given that
police were failing to issue reports to first time voter registrants to get
a national identity card for free.
Voter registration teams made the process cumbersome by refusing to issue
birth certificates which are a requisite to obtain an ID, before one
qualifies to register as a voter.
According to ERC, the previous voter registration exercise was characterised
by massive urban skirting where towns and cities such as Mutare, Chipinge,
Gwanda and Masvingo had no designated registration centres.
Apart from ERC, the Zimbabwe Election Support Network (Zesn) has also
complained about lack of professionalism among registration teams after they
failed to open and close centres at stipulated times, resulting in queuing
prospective voters being turned away.
In some cases, mobile units would relocate without notice, leaving citizens
frustrated.The registration teams, Zesn says, were plagued by an
excruciatingly slow pace of processing applications for registration.
“Mobile and static units had limited services. Reports reveal that not all
of the units were offering a comprehensive package of birth certificates,
national identification papers and voter registration on site,” Zesn says.
“As a result prospective registrants were unable to benefit fully from a
single centre. Some citizens with ‘waiting passes’ were asked to produce
birth certificates and upon failure to do so, failed to register.”
On funding of the exercise, Zesn says there is a problem with lack of
transparency on how the funds were disbursed, with government departments
accusing and counter-accusing each other of receiving different amounts of
money.
“As a result there was lack of accountability and blame games revolving
around inadequate funding dominated the narrative for the insufficiencies of
the exercise,” it says.
Thus civil organisations have recommended that decentralisation of the
process should reach at least the polling stations level in order to lessen
the travelling distance to allow easy access to voter registration services.
The civil groups further suggest that registration teams provide full
services to potential voters instead of limiting them to IDs and voter
registration without providing birth certificates.
They say a credible voter registration could be done if there was effective
supervision of the RG’s office by Zec, which is ultimately accountable to
stakeholders.
The groups say a successful voter registration exercise can only be achieved
after the public has been adequately informed of the process, the
requirements and the modalities prior to the commencement of the process.
Further, a proper voter registration requires adequate financial and
well-trained human resources, while stakeholders should be allowed to
educate and mobilise citizens to participate in the process, they say.