By Own Correspondent| The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) has revealed that following threats against its staff by opposition political parties, the elections body has lodged formal reports to the Zimbabwe Republic Police to ensure the security of its staff.
ZEC deputy chair Commissioner Emmanuel Magade said this during a meeting with election observers in Harare recently.
Said Commissioner Magade:
“I can confirm that threats have been issued to ZEC staff, some of it is captured on camera.
Some unkind and uncharitable things have been said about us. We find it totally, totally dispeakable and unconscionable and deplorable.
What we have done as law-abiding citizens is to refer those threats to the police and other law enforcement agencies.”
He refuted allegations that ZEC was a biased umpire in the Electoral process arguing that contrary to this belief, the elections body was conducting itself professionally without bias.
“Our wish and our ambition is that we should have an incident-free election. It is very regrettable that people like us who are supposed to be neutral umpires (are subjected to this).
We are not in the hands of anybody. We are not in the pockets of anybody; we belong to the people of Zimbabwe. So please help us to make the process straightforward and something that we can all be proud of.
Come July 30, we want to come up with a product that is fit for the purpose. These threats will not deter us in our endeavor to deliver free, verifiable and credible elections and once again I find the threats totally deplorable and in fact diabolical,” he said.
Opposition MDC Alliance, a coalition of 7 political parties last week marched to the ZEC and handed a petition with a raft of demands some of which included that ZEC should allow political parties to view the printing of the ballot papers, that ZEC avails an auditable voters roll with pictures and that the organisation should conduct itself professionally.
However, the MDC Alliance President Nelson Chamisa and other top stalwarts could not hand over their petition as the ZEC Chairperson Justice Priscilla Chigumba was nowhere to be found.