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The country’s biggest opposition party, MDC Alliance, has revealed a strategy that will help the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to expedite the voter registration ahead of the imminent 2023 elections.
Speaking during a media briefing held in Harare on Wednesday, the MDC Alliance secretary for election Ian Makone submitted a six point proposal as a solution to the ongoing voter registration process which apparently is marred with irregularities.
The six point solution include, the decentralisation of voter registration centres, the delimitation process, the diaspora vote, voter education, voting rights for prisoners and hospitalised patients and clearing the backlog of unregistered youths who have become of voting age since the 2018 elections.
- Summary of MDC-Alliance Proposals on Voter Registration
- ZEC should decentralize voter registration by setting up a permanent registration centre in each ward. Each such centre, acting as a mobile unit, should periodically visit and register voters at polling stations.
- ZEC should implement measures to clear the backlog of unregistered youths who have become of voting age since the 2018 elections
- On voter education, ZEC should arrange for civic society to participate in voter education on an ongoing basis, increasing national coverage and overcoming voter apathy.
- On the Diaspora, Government, through ZEC, should extend voting rights to citizens in the diaspora and put in place logistics that enable citizens to vote from designated host nations.
- Similarly, prisoners and the hospitalized should also enjoy their voting rights, and therefore logistics should also be put in place to enable them to register to vote and vote if they so wish.
- On delimitation, ZEC should commit to factoring in the 2021 population census as input into electoral boundaries when they are drawn up for the 2023 harmonized elections
- Conclusion
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