By Takudzwa Changadeya
The opposition Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) has cried foul over the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission’s (ZEC) reluctance to provide them with crucial information for the general elections scheduled for tomorrow.
The electoral body has denied opposition political parties access to an updated voters’ roll and details regarding the printing of ballot papers, leaving them wary of the fairness of the electoral process.
Talking to Bustop TV, CCC deputy spokesperson Ostallos Siziba expressed his frustration accusing the electoral body of conducting an unfair election.
“We are going to the polls without an updated voters roll. We have no access to information on the printing of ballot papers.
“So, if we win this election, which is possibly going to happen, we are going to win an unfair election. This election is not fair and ZEC is failing to do what is expected of it as an electoral body”, he said.
Expressing the same concerns, CCC president Nelson Chamisa told the crowds he was addressing Monday in Harare that they approached the electoral body to release an authenticated voters’ roll and all the vital information on the printing of ballot papers but to no avail.
“We told ZEC that what happened in 2018 cannot be repeated. I am a peace-loving man, and I will maintain peace.
“We’re saying to ZEC we want to see the voters roll that you are going to use and that voters roll must be authenticated.
“We also want the ballot paper for the president and for the Mps to be given to us as samples so that we can validate.
“We want to know where you are printing the ballot papers, so that we also have security checks. We don’t want ghost ballot papers, we don’t want ghost polling stations,” Chamisa said.
Recently, CCC’s chief elections officer, Ian Makone approached the High Court seeking a directive for the ZEC to provide an up-to-date copy of the voters’ roll and a final list of polling stations, unfortunately High Court Judge Never Katiyo dismissed it, saying it was “not urgent”
Meanwhile, team Pachedu – a transparency, responsibility, and accountability pro-democracy organisation – recently argued that the electoral body violated Section 21 of the Electoral Act which instructed the ZEC to avail the voters’ roll “to be used in the election”.
The organisation raised fears the electoral body’s reason behind keeping the voters’ roll a secret could be linked to attempts at rigging the elections.
The organisation also noted that there are many new polling stations and thousands of voters that have been moved to different polling stations.
It also raised anomalies in the voters’ roll given to parties, noting “strange patterns, such as deceased individuals, duplicate registrations, and a high concentration of voters in a small area”.
In reaction to the allegations of vote rigging, ZEC said the allegations were “pure malice bent on diminishing the public’s confidence in the voters’ roll and the country’s electoral processes”, ZEC said in a statement.
