Blow for opposition as High Court dismisses Voters Roll Application

The Zimbabwean opposition parties have suffered a major blow after the High Court dismissed an application by Harare North Legislator Allan Markham to have the Voters Roll released by Zimbabwe Electoral Commission.

Honorable  Markham  had filed a High Court challenge against the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec)  last year seeking to compel it to provide the national voters roll in electronic format.

However the High Court dismissed the application citing  security concerns, The court said that  ZEC was  mandated to safeguard voter’s roll, especially electronic one, claiming it can be tampered with “in this age of social media

Markham’s legal representantive Denford Halimani  said that the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission  (ZEC) had no grounds to deny the people access to the voters rolls as it was a constitutional right. since the country is going to polls later this year.

“The court said there is no merit in the application to compel ZEC to provide the voters roll to the applicant Allan Markham so that was the outcome,”he said

We still need the voters and the people of Zimbabwe still need the voters roll.We still need it because we are going  for an election .This is a live matter, we still need ZEC to give us, the people of Zimbabwe, a voter’s roll,”he added.