Terrence Mawawa

MDC Alliance aspiring candidate for Mberengwa North, Takavafira Zhou has slammed Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) for failing to resolve glaring anomalies before the July 30 elections.

Below is Zhou’ s statement:
That ZEC is incompetent and facilitating the rigging of elections is a fact that no level headed Zimbabwean can deny.

This can be proved beyond reasonable doubt at the briefest examination of facts in Mberengwa North.

1. Nine days to the watershed harmonised elections some wards still have no voters’ rolls.

Ward 15 and ward 35 have not yet received their respective voters rolls. The respective councillors have been to the Mberengwa offices more than three times and I have also visited the offices more than three times, the latest being today.

In spite of promises to provide the voters’ rolls the discs and replacement of discs sent have not been opening.

ZEC officials seem not to care about the urgency of providing voters’ rolls. It seems ZEC is trying to hide something and would provide such voters’ rolls on the eve of elections so that there would be no time to study the voters’ rolls.

2. The voters’ rolls provided are also haphazard. Although we are still studying them due to late provision of some wards’ voters’ rolls there have been shocking revelations.

3. People who died before compilation of voters’ rolls have found themselves in the voters’ rolls. A case in point is ward 11, number 81 (Dube Handa) and number 495 (Ngagla Konias).

It is prudent to note that ZEC claimed that the memory stick that contained all people who had registered at Cheshaga Polling Station had been lost. Sadly, dead people resurrected and reregistered.

There is certainly something fishy in such a timid approach.

4. Maphosa Taurungano is registered as number 271 under a fictitious headman Chigigo and registered as number 272 under heaman Chigigwa. The fictitious headman has several people registered under his jurisdiction such as number 171, 198, 201, 238, 342, 637 and 640.

5. There are also other fictitious village heads like number 209 ward 11 and this brings doubt as to the existence of such people.

6. There are people from Zvishavane Ngezi (ward 19) who registered to vote in Mberengwa North. It is clear that such people have been conveniently registered to justify the existence of such a polling station.

There is certainly need for clarity on the Mberengwa North and Zvishavane Ngezi boundary.

In light of the above, it is our submission that ZEC is deliberately withholding voters’ rolls for wards 15 and 35 so that we would not see other irregularities in them.

Coincidentally, ward 15 is the same ward where I come from and ZEC is aware it would be easy for me to identify fictitious names and irregularities.