Mobile voter registration in Zimbabwe – Round 2 begins
The Herald today announced that ward-based mobile voter registration in Zimbabwe will begin on Monday, and end 9 July. The new Constitution requires a 30-day voter registration exercise before new elections, so this is an essential part of Zimbabwe toward elections. At the mobile centres, there will also be an opportunity for people to get IDs and birth certificates.
According to The Herald, The Registrar General has said four teams are to cover all wards in a given district. If this is the case, if a district has, say, 20 wards, a team would spend 6 days in that ward. But a district like Harare has 45 wards – that means only 2 ½ days per ward – which, if the previous mobile voter registration exercise is anything to go by, is nowhere near enough time.
The Zimbabwe Election Support Network’s report on the May mobile voter registration exercise recommended that for voter registration, ”adequate time must be allocated to each centre in proportion to the population density in the community.” It’s not clear how sending four teams to cover all wards in any given district accomplishes that.
As SW Radio Africa reports, however, the publicity around this exercise has yet to begin – and even basic information like where one should go for their ward, and on what days, has yet to be shared with the public.
Also worrying is the basic fact that, as David Coltart helpfully explains, if mobile voter registration ends on 9 July, elections cannot be legally held before 31 July. It works like this:
- According to the Electoral Act, you need at least 28 days between nomination court (when all the candidates get vetted and approved) and elections
- You can’t have nomination court before the voters roll for that election is finalised, because a) a candidate has to be on the voters roll and b) the people who nominate him/her have to be on the voters roll
Presumably it might also take a day or two to close up the voter registration exercise and get the voters roll out for each relevant ward and constituency for nomination court? But even if it doesn’t, 28 days from 10 July puts us at 7 August. So one way or the other, Zimbabwe’s elections will violate a court order, violate Zimbabwe’s Constitution, or violate the Electoral Act. Promising start. I’m no lawyer. But surely out of those three options, the court order is the one with the least sway? Personally, I think we should drop the ridiculous “elections by 31 July frenzy,” and rather look to hold legal, Constitutional and properly prepared for elections on a date that makes sense and follows the law.