Team Pachedu, a group of Zimbabwean researchers, has urged the opposition in Zimbabwe to pressure the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) to release the voters’ roll, to avoid “fraud of 2013.”
Reports of discrepancies in the number of registered voters and the actual population in certain areas, as well as the inclusion of deceased individuals on the voters’ roll, led to allegations of a flawed voters’ roll in the 2013 elections in Zimbabwe. Opposition parties and civil society organizations accused the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) of manipulating the voters’ roll to benefit the ruling party, ZANU-PF. The controversy surrounding the voters’ roll led to calls for transparency and electoral reforms, which remained a major issue in subsequent elections to ensure free and fair elections in Zimbabwe.
Team Pachedu believes that if the opposition agrees to participate in the polls with a flawed voters’ roll, there is a risk of a repeat of the 2013 situation. In a Twitter post seen by Pindula News, Team Pachedu said:
There can never be a fair election without an electronic voters roll. Opposition parties should not run the risk of endorsing an already unpopular Zanupf in August 2023. There has to be pressure on ZEC to release the roll. The fraud of 2013 should never be repeated.
During a recent voters’ roll inspection process, many people found their names missing from the voters’ roll upon verifying at ZEC centres or via mobile phone platforms, and others discovered that their names were moved from the polling stations in which they registered. Some have viewed these glitches as part of structural vote rigging.
ZEC’s chief elections officer of ZEC, Utloile Silaigwana, last week announced that the voters’ roll for the upcoming general elections will be available to election candidates at the end of June. Silaigwana assured the public that any anomalies observed during the voters’ roll inspection exercise will be rectified during the final compilation of the voters’ roll.