New Regulations For Presidential Aspirants
6 October 2019
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Aspirants who wish to land the country’s top job — that of President — will have to be nominated by at least 1 000 registered voters from the country’s 10 provinces and fork out more than the current $1 000 nomination fee.


This comes as Government moves to align local nomination processes with regional and international best practices, it has been learnt.


The overhaul is also expected to winnow out “chancers”.
Last year, 23 candidates successfully registered for the Presidential election, the largest number since 1980.


However, the large pool of candidates created a logistical nightmare for the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) in designing the ballot paper.


Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi told The Sunday Mail that the new regulations will ensure that only serious candidates participate.


“We are also looking at provisions that deal with nomination fees for Presidential candidates and that of people who nominate the President with a view of increasing them from 100 to maybe 1 000,” said Minister Ziyambi.


“We want to revise the fees to make sure that they are reasonable.
“As you saw, (in) the last election we had the largest pool of candidates in the history of the country. While we want to encourage participation, we also want to make sure that only serious candidates find their names on the ballot.”


Current regulations require candidates seeking to contest Presidential, Parliamentary and local council polls to submit their candidacy to one of several specially convened nomination courts across the country.State media