More needs to be done on voter registration

Youth Forum wishes to congratulate the 25 603 citizens, who registered to vote from the start of the voter registration blitz to present.

As announced by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), a total of 25 603 registered to vote from the start of the registration blitz on the 1st of February to the 14th of February. We applaud the active citizens, who took their precious time to go and register to vote.

We specifically celebrate youths who despite the informalisation of the economy, which demands their time and presence throughout the day, took time to go and register to vote in various registration centres across the country.

As Youth Forum we work to encourage youth participation and youth voter registration is the current focus. The figure, therefore, represents commitment of some of our youths to participate and define their own destinies.

While we applaud the numbers as announced by ZEC, we note with concern the low numbers of the youths who are registering to vote during this blitz.

Youth Forum Zimbabwe has observed that there is low voter registration turnout of the youths across all provinces.

We also note the hurdles that impede youth voter registration across the country.

These include lack of identity documents, lack of information on registration centres and the blitz itself.

We, therefore, continue to call for increased information dissemination particularly in the rural areas and peri-urban communities.

We further call upon the Home Affairs ministry to address challenges of in access to identity documents.

Identity documents are a right and the state must work to facilitate their access without a cost and difficulties.

Identity documents are key beyond elections, but help the youth in their various education and professional endeavours.

We further call upon ZEC to give disaggregated data on registrants to help us to focus our efforts on specific demographic groups on voter registration.

Disaggregated data also helps to identify specific challenges affecting various demographic group and work to address them.

Finally, Youth Forum Zimbabwe continues to encourage youths to register to vote in the current first phase blitz which will end on the 28th of February 2022.

Voter registration is part of the youth participation drive which forms the bedrock of our interventions as Youth Forum.

Youth Forum Zimbabwe