The Thokozani Khupe led MDC-T has bemoaned the fact that the High Court order, ordering the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) to provide a copy of the provisional voters’ roll came too late to be of use in the July 30 elections. Justice Tawanda Chitapi gave the order after reserving judgement on the Electoral Resource Centre (ERC)’s urgent application which had been filed on the 29th of March 2018. In a statement, Linda Masarira the spokesperson for the Khupe led MDC-T said,
The High court order, ordering Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to provide ERC with a copy of the provisional voters’ roll came too late.
An election indicates the existence of democracy in any nation, the electoral process paves way for democracy and democracy is a baby of a clear electoral process and free and fair elections. Failure of any during preparations of so-called democratic elections might and definitely denigrate the real essence of the credibility of the anticipated democratic process.
The call for the aspiring candidates to the nomination court brought joy to so many of them just a day before as well as early hours of the day with aspiring candidates vividly waiting for the ” dream-come-true” as preparation for 2018 elections is now at length with only a few weeks left. However, the jovial mood and great expectations as Dickens the great author would say were turned into sorrow, disappointments as well as (the) need for clarity if truly ZEC was and is really ready to bring about the electoral democratic processes into existence.
The unavailability of the copy of a provisional voters’ roll on the nomination day left most of the opposition party prospective candidates without any choice but denied their registration and leaving the whole process as some of the nominators were not appearing on the voters roll. The absence of some registered voters on the voters’ roll affected most of our rural constituency candidates as they could not travel back to their homes to get other signatures. Our candidate from Mbire constituency Mr Marungisa is one of the affected persons and seven others in Mashonaland central.
If clarity has failed at these early stages of (the) election, what guarantee do fellow Zimbabweans possess that there is likely to have a free and fair election? The ground has already started developing some loopholes, cracks and the atmosphere that is disadvantaging other political parties and making it a clear indication that the election ground ahead of us is not level?
The release of the judgement a day after the nomination court simply implies that the judgement is merely meant for the future elections, not the 2018 one. Hence the position taken by the High Court judgement today, though positive but its validity has been diluted as it has released it after the sitting of the nomination court. So many candidates have been left disadvantaged and it is a clear indication of an uneven electoral field.