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Lovemore Meya Herald Correspondent—
AT least 954 900 people in the country’s 10 provinces had registered with the biometric voter registration system as of Sunday, with over 22 000 having been turned away for non-compliance, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) has said. ZEC public relations officer Mr Brian Tomo said potential voters were being turned away for not complying with the stipulated requirements of the new exercise.

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“Total voters registered to date is 954, 900,” said Mr Tomo. “This figure includes figures from the static registration centres for the period September 18 to October 9, 2017. The above figures show that there are no returns or submissions from 720 centres with 2 697 kits used on October 22 due to network and communication challenges. Figures from these remote and inaccessible centres are coming at different intervals as and when they manage to get the network or travel to accessible areas.”

The new statistics show that Manicaland — which covers areas such as Chipinge, Chimanimani, parts of Buhera and Mutare — had the most registrants at 143 770 voters, followed by Midlands (Gokwe North, part of Gokwe South) with 135 647, Mashonaland East (Mudzi, Mutoko, part of Uzumba Maramba Pfungwe) 135 148.

Masvingo (Chiredzi, Mwenezi, part of Chivi) had 122 332, Mashonaland Central (Mbire, Muzarabani, part of Mt Darwin) had 106 603, Mashonaland West (Kariba, part of Hurungwe) had 66 105 registered voters, Matabeleland North (Binga, part of Lupane) recorded 37 292, Matabeleland South (Insiza, part of Umzingwane) 37 151, while ZEC headquarters had the least number at 2 049.

ZEC said it faced network challenges in Mashonaland East, Masvingo, Matabeleland North, Matabeleland South and Midlands. Voter registration was launched on September 14, 2017, while registrations at static centres — at 63 ZEC district offices — started on September 18. ZEC has established 2 508 registration centres countrywide for the exercise, which will last for 72 days, which will be done in four segments.

The first phase runs from October 10 to 26, while the second phase will be done from October 29 to November 13 and the third segment will take place between November 16 and December 1. The last phase will run from December 4 to 19.