Only 7% of Zim's eligible voters did not register to vote

ABOUT seven percent (7%) of Zimbabwe's eligible voters did not register to cast their ballots in the July 31 harmonised elections amid indications that the country ranks fourth out of 10 Sadc member-states that held elections since 2009 in terms of the numbers of registered voters against eligible voters.

According to statistics released by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, about 6,2 million out of 6, 740, 925 eligible voters are registered.

This is contrary to figures released by the Research and Advocacy Unit that 2 million eligible voters under 30 years of age were not registered at the close of  voter registration on July 9, the state media reported.

RAU claimed that there were over one million people on the voters' roll who were either deceased or departed.

Analysts say African countries have young populations, meaning that about 40 percent of the total population may be under 18 years of years making them ineligible to vote, while European countries have older populations.

As at May 1, the Registrar-General's Office had scrapped almost one million names of deceased people from the voters' roll.

RG, Mr Tobaiwa Mudede, recently told the media that deceased voters from 1985 to May 1, this year who were scrapped from the voters' roll numbered 969 620.

When a person dies, a burial order is issued and subsequently a death certificate, the RG's Office automatically removes registered deaths from the voters' roll.

Burial orders and death certificates are mainly issued out for people who die in towns and cities, while those in rural areas are sometimes not reported to the authorities.

According to Chapter 36 B of the Amended Electoral Act assented to by President Mugabe last year, the constituency registrar can only remove a person from the voters' roll on the grounds that the voter was dead or absent from his or her constituency for a period of at least 12 months if there was a death certificate or a sworn statement by the mother, father, brother, sister, son, daughter or other direct descendent of the voter sought to be removed.

The other proof provided for by the Act includes a sworn statement by the councillor, chief, headman or village head of the area where the voter sought to be removed last resided.

The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission says no person would be removed from the voters' roll without providing the foregoing proof.

There are indications that the RG's Office removed some of the deceased people from the voters' roll after being informed by village heads.

Election statistics from commissions in the region indicate that Zimbabwe's total eligible voters are 6 740 925 which represent 52 percent of the country's total population that stands at 12 973 808.

The statistics show that Zimbabwe is fourth after Tanzania (2010), Mozambique (2009) and Malawi (2009) who have 95, 2 percent, 95, 1 percent and 93, 5 percent respectively in terms of the number of total registered voters against eligible voters.

Zimbabwe is one of the four countries of the 10 countries in Sadc that have the number of eligible voters exceeding 50 percent.

The other countries that have eligible voters who are more than 50 percent of the total population include South Africa (2009) that has 65 percent, Namibia (2009) has 57 percent while Tanzania (2010) has 51 percent.

Angola and Lesotho have no statistics of eligible voters with the former's voters registered in 2012 standing at 9 757 671 out of a total population of 18 056 072 while the latter's registered voters were 1 127 980 in 2012.