Zimbabweans in diaspora denied chance to vote

Zimbabweans in the Diaspora will have to physically avail themselves in Zimbabwe for voter registration and voting, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission has said.

Speaking during an engagement between the media and the electoral body on Tuesday, Zec chairperson Justice Rita Makarau said the said Zimbabwean citizens in the Diaspora would only be allowed to vote if the Electoral Act was aligned to the Constitution.

"People in the Diaspora will be able to vote as long as they come back to Zimbabwe on voting day and can vote from their wards," she said.

"People in the Diaspora, like any other Zimbabwean, once they are registered to vote, they are free to come back and be able to cast their ballots at their polling station which is designated in their ward. There is nothing that stops people in the Diaspora from voting as long as they come back."

Justice Makarau added: "Whether we will be able to make them vote in the Diaspora, quite a few things must happen and one of them is that the Electoral Act must be aligned to the Constitution and provide the mechanism through which the Diaspora vote will be administered. It will either entail, like other countries do, that we go and set up polling stations wherever our people are. It would also mean having to find out how many of our people are in each country, how many polling stations we need in each country or it would mean turning our embassies into polling stations. All those can only happen once our laws are clear about that but at the moment we don't have a law providing for that mechanism. So until there is that legal framework governing the Diaspora vote, people in the Diaspora will not be able to vote from where they currently reside in unless if they come to Zimbabwe."

Justice Makarau said those living outside the country should also avail themselves to register as voters because biometric voter registration exercise required their pictures and fingerprints.