ZEC invites civil society, calls for impartiality: The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) Chairperson, Justice Rita Makarau has appealed to civic organisations and groups wishing to partner the country’s electoral body in voter education to be impartial in their approach. ZEC this Thursday held a consultative meeting with representatives of churches and civic society in Harare to discuss the mobile registration exercise which starts on Monday, 10 June. Justice Makarau told the ZBC News that a vetting exercise will be carried out to ensure that those selected to participate in the exercise are apolitical. She said ZEC will provide education materials for the organisations that wish to partner it in voter education and in cases where the organisations want to use their own material, the electoral body will first assess it. “We have received a large number of applications from civic groups wishing to participate in the voter education starting today, June 6th,”said Justice Makarau. The representatives were mainly concerned with issues pertaining to publicity of the voter registration exercises and expressed concern that rural areas were not getting enough information as opposed to urban areas where there is access to the internet, newspapers, radio and television. ZEC said it will do everything possible including recruiting traditional leaders to mobilise people for the mobile registration exercise. The electoral body is also seeking to run radio and television programmes to inform and educate the populace on the mobile voter registration exercise. Aliens’ right to vote was also discussed in view of the new constitution. Registrar General Tobaiwa Mudede explained that any child born of either parent who is Zimbabwean has the right to register and vote in the coming elections. He also explained the process of renouncing one’s former citizenship. Over the past decade, Zimbabwe has grappled with some non-governmental organisations that have been recruited and sponsored by western countries to serve the regime change agenda. The nation is gearing up for harmonised elections after the Constitutional Court ruled that elections must be held before July 31. The lifespan of the seventh parliament of Zimbabwe expires on the 29th of June. Despite attempts by some political parties to defer elections to a future date, President Robert Mugabe has indicated that he does not want to rule by decree.
Posted on: Thu, 06 Jun 2013 19:21:37 +0000
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