Parliamentarians Friday said the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) must redo the delimitation process given that many issues were detected from the commission’s preliminary delimitation report tabled in Parliament last week Friday.
The chairperson of the Parliamentary ad hoc committee Pupurai Togarepi (ZANU PF) tasked to analyse the report poked holes in the document when presenting their findings. NewsDay quotes him as saying:
The committee noted that in the spirit of promoting and observing the principles of good governance that encompass transparency, justice and fairness, the report should have provided justifications for collapsing constituencies and wards.
The Constitution, in section 68 provides for administrative conduct or decisions that are both substantially and procedurally fair. Section 9 of the Constitution talks about good governance wherein commissions and other bodies established by or under the Constitution should carry out their functions conscientiously, fairly and honestly. The collapsing of constituencies and wards affects the legitimate expectations of stakeholders who may be adversely affected by that decision.
ZEC’s delimitation report has also caused some divisions within the ruling party as alleged factions allegedly accuse each other of influencing the outcome of the report for political gain.
Togarepi also said:
1). During the oral evidence, ZEC claimed that constituencies with fewer registered voters were dissolved to give in registered voters to the Constituencies which had more numbers of registered voters.
2). ZEC was supposed to use census results in coming up with the report.
3). ZEC should ensure that there is an equal number of voters in constituencies or wards as provided for in terms of Section 161 (3) and (4) of the Constitution.
4). ZEC should maintain constituencies with more voters and collapse those with fewer voters.
Ad hoc committee member Senator Douglas Mwonzora said the report is unacceptable because it did not consider the voter population.
Mwonzora said Zec must redo the delimitation exercise based on the population census instead of data which was made 15 years ago.
Harare East Citizens Coalition for Change legislator Tendai Biti echoed Mwonzora’s remarks.