The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) has printed 594 300 ballots for the forthcoming National Assembly and local authorities’ by-elections scheduled for March 26.
ZEC chief elections officer, Mr Utloile Silaigwana, made the announcement on Wednesday.
The ballots for the National Assembly were printed by Fidelity Printers and Refiners while those for local authorities were printed by Printflow. Mr Silaigwana said:
A total of 870 550 National Assembly ballot paper and fifty 723 750 local authority ballot papers have been printed for the conduct of the by-elections.
He added that a contingency of 6.99 per cent had been added to the ballots printed for the National Assembly by-elections while a 6.71 per cent contingency had been added to the ballots printed for local authority by-elections.
A total of 813 659 people were registered to vote for National Assembly elections while 678 260 were registered for local authorities’ by-elections.
The ballot papers were printed in books of 50 each.
There are 28 vacant National Assembly seats and 122 for local authorities.
The bulk of vacancies resulted from recalls of opposition MDC Alliance members by MDC-T and some who died or redeployed.
At least 16 political parties will contest the by-elections.
The ruling ZANU PF, Citizen Coalition for Change and MDC-Alliance, All People’s Party, Democratic Opposition Party, Federation of African State, Free Zimbabwe Congress, Labour, Economists and African Democrats, MA’AT Zimbabwe, Movement for Democratic Change Alliance, New Patriotic Front, Patriotic Zimbabweans, Republican Party of Zimbabwe, United Democratic Alliance, United Zimbabwe Alliance, Zimbabwe African People’s Union and Zimbabwe Labour Party, will contest in the elections.
More: The Herald