President Emmerson Mnangagwa has told Zimbabweans living outside the country that they may soon find themselves involved in the country’s elections as they may soon be having a parliamentary seat in the country.
Mnangagwa said this while addressing Zanu-PF supporters from Canada and the United States who had been brought to New York to give solidarity to their leader who is attending the 74th United Nations General Assembly.
Mnangagwa said the ZANU PF decision making body between congresses, the Politburo, was seriously considering to create a party province for the diaspora based Zimbabweans and ultimately a Parliamentary seat.
“Our people in the diaspora not only yourself in America and Canada, but also in other parts of the world have pleaded that they want to have an eleventh province, called the Diaspora province,” he said.
“This was debated in our Politburo, we now have a small committee which is working on how the eleventh province of the people in the diaspora can be structured, which may result in having diaspora representation in Parliament.
“We have a committee working on how that can be crafted, but at least we recognise the role of our people in the diaspora,” Mnangagwa said.
Meeting with the same group at the same time last year, Mnangagwa agreed with the principle of Zimbabweans living outside the country being allowed to vote and promises that his administration is looking into the logistical issues between now and the next elections in 2023.
President Mnangagwa indicated a vote for Diasporans may well have been implemented in the 2018 elections but his Government had not had enough time to thrash out all the logistical issues.
Zimbabweans living outside the country have for decades called for the right to vote, which is not captured in existing electoral laws.
“As I went around (different) countries I met . . . our Zimbabweans in the Diaspora who insisted on wanting to have an opportunity to vote.
“I agree with that request, but we were not able, in the time available, to have the logistics put into place to implement that objective. We now have five years where we can work on that objective where we can see whether we can implement it,” President Mnangagwa said to the group of ZANU PF supporters last year.