People should register as voters: ZEC

THE Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) chief elections officer, Lovemore Sekeramayi said, in a statement, that people should register as voters.

He said "The public is hereby informed that as its legal mandate, the commission has an oversight function over the Registrar-General of Voters."

"ZEC urges citizens of Zimbabwe - 18 years and above - to inspect the voters' rolls and/or register as voters at Registrar-General of Voters offices at the national, district and designated registered centres.

"Note that voter registration is a continuous exercise in Zimbabwe."

Mr Sekeramayi said the commission has since launched a voter education campaign.

"This time around, ZEC has been more proactive and has designed materials that address specific needs of youth, women and people living with disabilities," he said.

As part of the preparations, ZEC recently trained its members and acquired vehicles, computers, laptops, photocopiers, public relations and training equipment and relevant software packages.

ZEC is already installing hardware and software for Internet communication.

Mr Sekeramayi said for the past 20 months, the commission has been busy "realising that an election was not an event, but a process".

He said they managed to raise funds from the United Nations Development Programme and its co-operating partners to enable ZEC to address its strategic objectives.

"The last 10 months have been congested with a number of training programmes for commissioners and staff in order to enhance their capacity in executing the ZEC mandate," Mr Sekeramayi said.

Some of the training includes an intense international course on election administration and management, secretarial course for secretaries, defensive driving course for all ZEC headquarters drivers and development of a voter education manual to facilitate the implementation of one of ZEC's key obligations.

Mr Sekeramayi said another key area that the commission embarked on was a very participatory job evaluation exercise which should be completed this year, tabled before a full commission and finally submitted for consideration to Government.
He said ZEC participated in the Sadc secretariat, Sadc Electoral Commissions Forum and AU-organised observer missions to DRC, Gambia, Liberia, Mauritius, Nigeria, the Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Uganda.

"These missions have been a revelation, both the commission and the secretariat have drawn a lot of lessons from this involvement as well as sharing and drawing from international best practice in the management and administration of elections," Mr Sekeramayi said.

He said the commission played a leading role in setting up and management of logistics during the just-ended DRC elections after an appeal for help.

Mr Sekeramayi said they recently acquired Mahachi-Quantum Building in Harare and Windsor Park Building in Bulawayo as permanent offices to enhance accessibility and independence.

He said they hoped that as the fiscus improves, ZEC will be accorded more resources to further its infrastructural and technological developments.

"The commission intends to launch a campaign in the near future to make it more visible to the public and also engender a spirit of stakeholder consultation and engagement as ongoing exercises so as to maximise stakeholder participation through active interaction," said Mr Sekeramayi.

"To date, ZEC has conducted two workshops with civil society and other organisations and one with political parties."

President Mugabe recently said elections should be held next year without fail to end problems associated with the inclusive Government.

He urged Copac to quicken the pace in drafting a new constitution that will be put to a referendum before the elections were held.

The Global Political Agreement, which gave birth to the inclusive Government, has since outlived its two-year mandate.
Analysts say the inclusive Government is now operating illegally, but only elections can signify its end.