200,000 register as first-time voters

About 200 000 Zimbabweans registered as first-time voters under the national mobile voter registration blitz that officially ended on Sunday evening though there are indications that more people might have failed to register.

Registrar-General of Voters Mr Tobaiwa Mudede yesterday said lack of resources constrained his office from executing its mandate as it had envisaged when the exercise was launched.

"The total number of people who registered as voters is 203 741 from the figures we have received from our teams, but we are still receiving more figures because some teams are still out since they were in the remote places," Mr Mudede said.

"People who inspected the voters’ roll are 268 574, which is also an estimation at the moment while 71 131 people transferred (from their previous polling stations.) The total number of national identity cards issued was 214  230. We are still receiving more figures so these figures are subject to review."

Mr Mudede said lack of resources hampered his office from executing its duties.

"We faced so many challenges because of lack of resources. Money came very late and it was very little because we had been told we would get US$8 million, but only US$4 million was disbursed.

"For that reason, we could not get transport at once for the 62 districts and other sub-offices and the 265 operational centres. Each district had one car that belongs to this office to cover the whole district. We used the meagre transport we had. We did not get even a single vehicle from any ministry nor from the CMED. Money has been the challenge. How could we be expected to cover the whole district with one vehicle?

"We had asked the Public Service Commission to give us staff to help us, but because of financial challenges we could not bring them on board. I believe there are still many people to be covered," Mr Mudede said.

Mr Mudede said in some districts they started with one mobile unit while the second ones came on board later. He said his office would have expected to have at least four teams per district to cover most of the areas.

Government has already indicated that there could be an extension of the exercise to ensure most Zimbabweans register as voters. As at May 1, 2013, the total voter population was 5 677 881 while 3 316 082 people cast their votes at the referendum on March 16.

Mr Mudede dismissed claims by MDC formations that he deliberately deployed more teams to Zanu-PF strongholds to swing the vote to the party.

He also dismissed reports that his office was tampering with MDC-T supporters' voting details so that they could not vote at the forthcoming harmonised elections.

"This man, going to each centre to misbehave throughout the country removing names of people or misspelling them? Even a ghost sent by the devil wouldn't afford to do that throughout the country," said Mr Mudede.

Mr Mudede also scoffed at claims by businessman and South African citizen Mr Mutumwa Mawere that his office had refused to restore his Zimbabwean citizenship.