Zimbabwean Parliamentarians shreds Zec delimitation report

PARLIAMENTARIANS yesterday "tore up" the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec)'s preliminary delimitation report tabled in Parliament last week Friday, describing it as flawed.

Independent election watchdogs, data experts and some Zanu-PF affiliates have also, since Friday last week, been criticising the report as defective.

Chairperson of the Parliamentary ad hoc committee Pupurai Togarepi (Zanu-PF) tasked to analyse the report poked holes in the document when presenting their findings.

"The committee noted that in the spirit of promoting and observing the principles of good governance that encompass transparency, justice and fairness, the report should have provided justifications for collapsing constituencies and wards," Togarepi said.

"The Constitution, in section 68 provides for administrative conduct or decisions that are both substantially and procedurally fair. Section 9 of the Constitution talks about good governance wherein commissions and other bodies established by or under the Constitution should carry out their functions conscientiously, fairly and honestly. The collapsing of constituencies and wards affects the legitimate expectations of stakeholders who may be adversely affected by that decision."

Zec has been accused of gerrymandering in the way it planned to redraw electoral boundaries as presented in the delimitation report.

The report has also caused some divisions within the ruling party as alleged factions reportedly aligned to President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his Deputy Constantino Chiwenga allegedly accuse each other of influencing the outcome of the report for political gain.

"The explanation by Zec during the oral evidence was that constituencies with fewer registered voters were collapsed to give in registered voters to the Constituencies which had more numbers of the registered voters," Togarepi said.

"The committee noted that the formula or criteria used as well as justifications of the decisions were not provided."

According to Togarepi, Zec was supposed to use census results in coming up with the report.

He said: "The committee recommends that Zec should take due regard to the census population in its totality in the delimitation exercise and not just the adult population.

"Zec was supposed to use the final census results. This is because wards and constituencies serve other purposes apart from elections, for instance, distribution of devolution funds and constituency development funds.

"Zec should ensure that there is an equal number of voters in constituencies or wards as provided for in terms of Section 161 (3) and (4) of the Constitution. Where there was a departure from the permissible variance of lower and upper limit of 20%, Zec should rectify and ensure that it remains within the allowable variance.

"Where collapsing of constituencies that had more voters was done to give in to those that had fewer voters, it is the committee's considered view that Zec should use the same principle of maintaining those with more voters and collapse those with fewer voters.

"While the committee appreciates that it is not possible for Zec to meet the expectations of all the stakeholders in this exercise, it is the committee's considered view that all the issues raised in this report, particularly, those that are inconsistent with provisions of section 161 of the Constitution will be resolved before the finalisation of the report on the delimitation exercise."

Ad hoc committee member Senator Douglas Mwonzora said the report is unacceptable because it did not consider the voter population.

"This report is unacceptable. In order to do delimitation, you must consider voter population and voter population comes from the census. We did a census last year and up to now the results if the final census are not there, therefore it is impossible to know the population in each ward and constituency," Mwonzora said.

"There were arbitrary allocating figures of the constituencies. The constitution provides that 20% should be the variance between constituencies, but Zec used 40% because it misread the section."

Mwonzora said Zec must redo the delimitation exercise.

"Delimitation must last 10 years, but to use data which was made 15 years ago does not make sense. Zec must redo delimitation based on the population census," he said.

Harare East Citizens Coalition for Change legislator Tendai Biti said: "The report must be loyal to data. Was the voters roll made available? Was the census made available? Was the data compiled within the demands of the law? The law must be complied with."