ZEC registers 10 000 in Masvingo, engages youths

THE Zimbabwe Electoral Commission registered more than 10 000 new voters in its second registration blitz in Masvingo running from April 11 to 30.

ZEC deputy provincial elections officer Mr Maxwell Ncube said on Thursday that more men than women were registered in the blitz.

“During the second registration blitz we registered 5 645 new men voters and 4 968 women giving a combined total of 10 613 new voters across the province,” he said.

“The highest number of new voters recorded during the blitz was recorded in Masvingo district which had 1 200 voters followed by Gutu which had 1 120.”

Mwenezi recorded 344 new voters and Chivi 453, the least number of voters recorded in a district of the province.

Mr Ncube said 5 226 voters moved to new wards across the province, with 2 671 of them being men.

Masvingo is one of the country’s most populous provinces and presently divided into 26 parliamentary constituencies.

Meanwhile, as part of efforts to encourage youths to participate in national political processes, ZEC and the Zimbabwe Youth Council are holding a three-day interface conference in Harare.

The conference started yesterday and ends on Sunday.

In her address yesterday, ZEC Chairperson Justice Priscilla Chigumba expressed concern on the low participation of youths in electoral activities.

“The youth constitutes over half of this country’s population but statistics on their participation in electoral activities do not correspond to this demographic content. Youths are the leaders of tomorrow and it is therefore imperative for the current generation not to drop the baton but to arouse their interest and understanding on issues of democracy and elections on our beloved continent,” said Justice Chigumba. “It would be a sad day if their generation would regress to periods when there was no democracy at all and violence and unrest were the dominant social activities. The spread of democracy is one of the dramatic changes that the world has witnessed in the past few years and elections have been the indispensable root of it.

“Elections are now almost universal and since the year 2000 all but less than 10 countries have held national elections for purposes of choosing their leaders.