By Takudzwa Changadeya
OPPOSITION Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) has condemned incidents of intimidation being perpetrated by a Zanu-PF aligned organisation, called Forever Association of Zimbabwe (FAZ), at all Zimbawe Electoral Commission (ZEC) registration centers.
FAZ is alleged to be forcibly confiscating voter’s information including registrants’ photos and their voter registration slips.
Addressing the media in Harare recently, CCC’s Election Directorate member Ellen Shiriyedenga said the illegal confiscation of the registrants’ information by FAZ agents is happening in full view of the Zimbawe Republic Police (ZRP) and ZEC.
“We have noted some incidents of intimidation by a ZANU PF aligned organization named FAZ deployed in all registration centres.
“FAZ mandate is to take personal voter information on behalf of ZANU PF, by taking photos of registrants and forcibly confiscating their voter registration slips in full view of the police and ZEC officials, for example, in Mbare Mabvuku, Glenview and Mbizo in Kwekwe,” she said.
Shiriyedenga also revealed that Zanu-PF is irregularly transfering rural voters to urban areas, particularly Harare, Masvingo and Bulawayo.
“We are aware of the systematic and irregular transfers of voters from rural areas into urban areas being done by ZanuPF, packing them in targeted wards and constituencies more particularly in Harare, Masvingo and Bulawayo.
“Security personnel are also manipulated into transferring their votes to specified areas as is in the case with the over 2,000 military recruits in Bulawayo.
She added that Bulawayo City vendors have also been coerced to transfer to Bulawayo using fake addresses.
“The evidence we have is a clear testimony that ZanuPF is embarking on command voting in order to forcefully influence the voting behavior of these affected voters.
“Let me remind them that these shenanigans will not work because the citizens are fed up with the corruption and misgovernance under this administration,” she added.
Shiriyedenga pointed out some of the major challenges impeding the voter registration blitz currently underway including the frequent malfunctioning and scarcity of Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) machines, electricity outages and the impact cylclone Freddy induced bad weather conditions in some areas.
“As the CCC we are in the process of compiling the list of areas that have been affected for example in Chipinge because of cyclone Freddy there was no registration which took place and also the malfunctioning of ZEC machines,” said Shiriyedenga.
“There were quite a number of BVR machines malfunctioning. We have for example in Gutu Central, Ward 35 there was one machine in Mabugu primary school and that machine malfunctioned and it only started to work at 3 pm. Subsequently ZEC was only able to register 7 people that day because remember the cut-off time is 5pm,” she said.
