Zec must not disenfranchise diasporans
THE Constitution provides that every citizen has the right to vote in any election. There is no provision in the Constitution that if you are in prison, living outside Zimbabwe or on duty away from home on election day you are barred from voting.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec)’s responsibility is to ensure that every Zimbabwean, wherever they live, has access to both registration and voting, not to come up with regulations that disenfranchise the electorate.
Where there is a will there is a way, so goes the adage. I believe it’s high time diasporans pushed for the diaspora vote. They have a right to participate in electoral processes in this country.
The electoral management body should not disenfranchise people.
It is just so much easier to go off half-cocked and disenfranchise any citizens that cannot easily be catered for on election day!
As things stand, preparations for the 2023 elections are already in motion.
Zec should do the right thing now so that Zimbabwe can once again stand proud in the eyes of the world by not having flawed elections.
People in the diaspora can be registered by the embassies in their countries of residence on production of a national registration card or passport and vote at the same venue.
People who cannot prove their residency could be debarred from voting for Members of Parliament or councillor, but can still be allowed to vote for the President, but the computer system should be able to handle people voting from outside their ward.
There are also different levels of voting, namely national issues that are not ward-based, ie, presidential elections and referendums.
People should be able to vote in these categories from anywhere in the world and not necessarily having to go to their wards to vote.
So the need to prove residency should not be a criterion for being allowed to register to vote as it is restrictive in the extreme.
In this day and age, one should be able to vote online and if the available biometric voting system cannot cope with the volumes, a different supplier should be found that can deliver a system that can hold a huge number of voters.
Zec should get its act together and organise a 21st century voter registration and voting system.
At the moment, it looks like the electoral management body is still stuck in the dark ages.
Bitter Voter