Election candidates disqualified over missing names on voter's roll

FAILURE by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to avail the voters roll to political parties has emerged as one of the contributing factors to the disqualification of candidates during the nomination court processes, an observer report has revealed.

The Election Resource Centre (ERC) Africa, in an observation report, said the nomination process despite going smoothly in all provinces was curtailed by various obstacles.

"The ERC notes that the fairness of the nomination process was possibly impacted as a number of candidates were disqualified due to "illegal" nominators.

"This issue could have been avoided had the Electoral Commission availed a copy of the voters' roll to political parties ahead of the nomination court day for candidates to be able to verify their nominators registration status," read the report.

This, according to the report, inherently led to some members being disqualified because their names and the names of their nominators were not on the voter's roll.

"In Plumtree, two candidates' nomination forms were declined for local authority election. The prospective candidates were disqualified due to the candidate not appearing on the voters roll whilst another candidate purported representing CCC had no party signature.

"Seven nomination papers for the local authority election were rejected in Makoni and one application in Marondera. The reasons for rejection included that the names of the person nominating the candidate did not appear on the voter‘s roll, their papers had missing details and some candidates failed to submit their papers on time."

The report revealed that one Marry Kanyoka representing UZZI in Chipinge for the Ward election was rejected because she was not registered in the ward she was contesting.

In Chipinge again, three candidates at Local Authority level were disqualified from nomination, two for not appearing in the Ward of contestation, and one for not having an original birth certificate and ID.

The ERC also revealed that some 20 aspiring National Assembly candidates representing the MDC-T party were disqualified after they failed to pay nomination fees while another 22 others  were rejected after the candidates submitted the forms and disappeared.

"At Marondera Magistrate courts, two candidates from Citizen Coalition for Change, Misheck Manyere and Caston Matewu submitted nomination papers for the same National Assembly election for Marondera Central Constituency."

According to the report, In Shurugwi, the monitors noted that an alleged Zanu-PF losing candidate of Ward 7 attempted to file as an independent candidate and was reportedly removed from the Nomination Court by security personnel.

However, he subsequently successfully filed his nomination papers as an independent candidate.