141-year-old voter is a sign election at risk of fraud

HARARE, Zimbabwe — The world’s oldest person is 141 years of age and lives in Zimbabwe. Not far behind is a 134year-old, also in Zimbabwe. At least that’s according to the country’s voters’ roll, which has come under sharp scrutiny ahead of the July 30 election, the first in decades without longtime leader Robert Mugabe.

The main opposition party has called the voters’ roll deeply flawed and the most prominent sign that the election’s credibility is at risk. On Wednesday, thousands of people rallied in the capital, Harare, to call for more transparency, dancing and waving signs saying “No reforms, no elections.”

While President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who took power when Mugabe was pressured to step down in November, and the election commission have pledged a free and fair election, the issues with the voters’ roll have many worried that Zimbabwe’s government is failing to break with a long past of alleged election fraud.

The strikingly old voters are just one concern. The voters’ roll also shows more than 100 people registered at a single address and has multiple people sharing a single ID number, according to the main opposition’s chief election agent, Jameson Timba.

“We are not going to compromise,” main opposition leader Nelson Chamisa told the crowd on Wednesday, accusing the election commission, the military and Mnangagwa of trying to rig the vote.

The opposition’s suspicions extend to the ballots’ printing, storage, design and even paper quality.

Confidence in the election has run so low that the opposition encourages its supporters to carry their own pens into the voting booths because they don’t trust the ones provided.

Mnangagwa, a longtime ally of Mugabe until he was fired as a result of a ruling party feud, is under pressure to deliver a free and fair election as a key step in lifting years of international sanctions.

Zimbabwe’s past elections have been marked by accusations of violence and fraud. Mugabe banned Western election observers but Mnangagwa has welcomed them for the first time in almost two decades.

And this year’s election has been largely free of violence.