Zimbabwe must account for high number of ballot papers, says AU

THE African Union Election Observer Mission (AUEOM) to the July 31 elections has urged the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) to account for the significantly high number of ballot papers that were printed during elections.

In its final report AUEOM said it was worried about the significant number of voters who were turned away as well as missing ballot papers."The AUEOM noted that the number of ballot papers printed (8,7 million), corresponding to 35% above the number of registered voters was significantly higher than international best practices of five to 10% and raised concerns of accountability of unused ballots," read the report.

"The AUEOM hopes that Zec will account for the ballots to the satisfaction of stakeholders and all interested parties."

The elections were contested at the Constitutional Court by MDC-T who alleged massive vote rigging by Zanu-PF. MDC-T later withdrew the applications.

On ballot papers AUEOM report also noted that a significant number of local government ballot booklets had missing ballot papers and were not serially identified.

"One such case was noted at a polling station at Town House where two local government ballot booklets had only 99 papers instead of 100," reads part of the report. Turning away of voters was also noted as a widespread phenomenon where the observer mission noted that at one polling station in Matabeleland South in Gwanda, 85 voters were referred to the command centre for reasons like voters' names appearing at the wrong ward and names not found on the voters' roll.

The mission also castigated late publication of the final list of polling stations which was done barely 48 hours to the opening of polls, as well as the occurrence of a high number of assisted voters at several polling stations and disenfranchisement of voters.

On the State broadcaster, the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation, AUEOM said it failed to give adequate coverage to opposition parties and non-State actors in the pre-election and election phases, and they were the subject of post-election disputes. AUEOM recommended that Zimbabwean authorities should reconsider the use of police officers in assisting voters as it may unduly influence the manner in which they voted.

"The voters' roll should be made available to all stakeholders for verification and inspection in both electronic and hard copy format at least 14 days before elections," reads part of the report.

They said Zec should be provided with adequate resources as prescribed in the OAU Declaration on the Principles Governing Democratic Elections in Africa of 2002.