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Bulawayo Bureau
MORE than 5,3 million people have registered to vote nationwide ahead of the harmonised elections to be held between July 21 and August 21 this year, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) said yesterday. The country is geared for the general election in line with the country’s Constitution with about 75 political parties expected to participate.

President Mnangagwa has pledged that the election would be free, fair and transparent and that local, regional and international bodies would be allowed to observe the process.

In a statement, ZEC chairperson Justice Priscilla Chigumba said the nationwide Biometric Voter Registration (BVR), which ended on February 8 with a mop-up blitz, registered overwhelming response with a provisional total of 5 310 734 eligible voters.

“The commission is grateful to the electorate for the overwhelming response towards the call to register resulting in the Commission registering a provisional figure of above five million registrants,” said Justice Chi- gumba.
The initial Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) process began in October and closed in December after completion of four phases. About 4,6 million people had successfully registered to vote at that time and the process had to be extended to accommodate more people.

“The last general election was held on July 31, 2013 and the President-elect was sworn in and assumed office on August 22, 2013.

“The current President’s term of office expires on August 21,” said Justice Chigumba.
“Thus the next general elections should be held on any date between July 21 and August 21 unless Parliament is dissolved.”
The ZEC chair, however, said the actual date(s) for the general elections would be set by the President by way of a proclamation in terms of Section 144 of the Constitution.

“After a proclamation of an election date the Nomination Courts must sit on a date, which is at least 14 days and not more than 21 days after the proclamation date,” she said.

“The elections must then be held on a day, which is at least 30 days and not more than 63 days after the Nomination Court day.
“While the Commission awaits the issuance of a proclamation for the 2018 harmonised election, it is seized with the processes of decrypting data from the BVR exercise and preliminary cleaning of data collected during the blitz phases as it awaits the delivery of de-duplication software.”

ZEC has since extended its gratitude to political parties for mobilising their members to register and other organisations for playing a collaborative role. It also paid tribute to Government for providing financial sup- port.

“Without financial support from the Government who purchased BVR kits and cooperating partners who supported the training of kit operators the whole exercise would have come to nought,” said Justice Chigumba.

“Civil society organisations and faith based organisations came up with voter education materials and conducted voter education, which included the whole spectrum of society.

“The electronic media provided advertisement space and free airtime, while print media carried informative voter registration messages.”

After data de-duplication, Justice Chigumba said a provisional voters’ roll will be produced and opened for public inspection before the final document is printed.

Meanwhile, Justice Chigumba said ZEC would continue with the voter registration exercise at the Commission’s 10-provincial and 63 district offices.

“The Commission is currently seized with processes leading to the production of a provisional voters’ roll that will be laid out to the public for inspection,” she said.