By Chantel Takudzwa Zambukira
Only five thousand new names appear on the voters roll, a development that shows that voter education campaigns such as ZANU PF’s “five million” new votes for ED are a monumental flop ahead of this year’s harmonised elections.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission on Friday submitted it’s draft of the delimitation process that shows that there is only 5 804 376 registered voters so far.
The 2018 figure stood at 5310734 which means the number of voters has only increased by a paltry eight percent.
The current figures also reflected the alarming de-population of Bulawayo and the Matebeleland region. Political analyst and former Sunday News, news editor Methuseli Moyo said people in the Midlands -Matebeleland region generally are not interested in exercising their right to vote.
“First of all, most of the people of voting age in the Matebeleland region track annually to South Africa because of economic reasons, a situation that has resulted in fewer people in the Western Provinces of Zimbabwe being found on voters roll. Those that have remained are either not registered or appearing on the voters roll but end up not casting their ballots,” Moyo said.
Another prominent analyst Effie Ncube called on Government to allow people in the diaspora to participate in the county’s elections.
“If only Government could extend voting rights to those in the diaspora maybe the number of registered voters would have been higher,” Ncube said.
“We need to amend the constitution that being outside borders should not be the basis for disenfranchisement and that requiring people in the diaspora to trek back home in order to vote is an unreasonable and irrational burden.” Ncube the Royal Trust spokesperson also said.