Tsvangirai, Mujuru up tempo in voter registration mobilisation

MORGAN Tsvangirai's MDC-T and the National People's Party (NPP) led by Joice Mujuru have upped the tempo in their voter registration mobilisation campaign by targeting people in rural areas, whom they say are still largely in the dark on what the biometric voter registration (BVR) exercise is all about.

NPP Masvingo provincial chairperson, Oliver Chirume said BVR has had a false start in rural areas, as compared to urban areas, where access to information was higher.

"We do not have a problem with our people in town because they now understand what BVR is and how to go about the registration process. The biggest challenge is in rural areas, where people are still struggling to understand the whole process," he said.
"I have been to many districts and people are still confused and some cannot even complete the affidavit forms at the registration centres."

Chirume said they were putting more effort in rural areas to try and demystify the BVR process to the rural folk, who were often times given false information.

"Our people in the rural areas are fed wrong information by Zanu-PF. They are made to believe that BVR is Zanu-PF machinery aimed at spying on how people vote and who they vote for. This is the challenge we are facing in rural areas and more work has to be done," he said.

MDC-T Masvingo urban district chairperson, Muranganwa Chanyau said their teams were on the ground distributing fliers encouraging people to go and register to vote.

"We are now in the voter registration mobilisation drive and we are not going to stop until we see people turn out in their numbers to register to vote," he said.

"In Masvingo Urban, there was only one registration centre at the district administrator's offices, but the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission provincial offices are now open for registration and we are encouraging our people to take the opportunity to register as voters.

"Our teams go door to door distributing fliers to educate people on how to go about the process," Chanyau said.
The MDC-T national youth leader Happymore Chidziva together with vice president Nelson Chamisa have also joined the voter registration mobilisation campaign using Facebook as their medium.