Below was the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission’s chairperson, Justice Priscilla Chigumba’s response to questions on the Ballot paper alleged “fraudulent” design in a LIVE interview with Ruvheneko Parirenyatwa last night – 

Chigumba: ” What does double page mean I am not quite sure what that means, what are you saying?”

RP: Double columns.

Chigumba: “Right.”

RP: Let’s address this issue, I think you know what the issue is, right? The columns?

Chigumba: “Let me tell you, errrm. What we did, errrm, as a commission we had three different ballot paper designs, we actually have a ballot design partner which sits down and designs the most cost-effective ballot paper, I would be the first to admit that we did not anticipate that we would have 23 presidential candidates in particular. What we did is firstly we are guided by the law that says that in the design and printing of the Ballot paper the names of the candidates must be in alphabetical order, so that one is given. It’s the law, so in coming up without design we then said we will go with 14 name columns. So you will find when you actually go on polling day 14 columns even for the national Assembly and even the one for council. So any Ward or constituency where there is more than 14 candidates, whether it’s presidential whether it’s council, we decided to work with 14 numbered columns.”

RP: how do we know how you decided to get to do this because this is what the issue is? Because some are saying you made this decision in order to favour the incumbent.

Chigumba: “Why would we do that? ”

RP: that’s the question everybody asks why would you do that?

Chigumba: “We are a commission that took an oath of office to discharge our duties Without Fear or favour or Prejudice. We are also not under the Direction or control of anyone. What the law actually says is that we are accountable to Parliament.

But we are accountable to Parliament at the end of the process. What happens is that at the end of the process we will submit a report to Parliament which says this is the criteria that we used in coming up with the Ballot paper design, and that report is actually tables before Parliament, in parliament can actually summon us and question us, now when we say that we are not under the Direction or control of anyone Ruvheneko, I feel sort of give you an example, we did say that 55 political parties successfully fielded candidates, now if we put all 55 political parties in this room, and we say come up with ballot paper design, what do you think would happen? Errrm, when Parliament gave us the exclusive mandate to procure ballot paper, to design it to print it and to distribute it, Parliament knew exactly what it was doing. Which is where we come back to the point of are we being necessarily narrow in our interpretation of the law? Because Parliament says we alone and only the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission has the exclusive mandate to procure the paper design it and print it…”