Melinda Kusemachibi
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) Masvingo has said a total of 371 people registered to vote in the whole of Masvingo province for the entire 2021 despite the fact that the offices were open for registration since the end of the 2018 harmonized elections except during the hard lockdown period.
Deputy Provincial Election Officer Maxwell Ncube confirmed that a total of 371 registered to vote for the year 2021 with 257 being males and 114 females.
“371 people registered to vote in Masvingo province. More surprisingly men who registered to vote during the year 2021 shows the other way that it actually doubled that of women who registered, which is very unusual and we do not know the reasons behind or it could the change by males wanting to register as voters we do not know,” said Ncube.
He also said they encourage people to come and register to vote in 2022.
“We continue to urge more potential voters to come and register to vote in 2022 in preparation for harmonized elections that are likely to be held in 2023,” he said.
Ncube also said that they managed to engage stakeholders after some restrictions were relaxed.
“The year 2021 was characterized by a shadow restriction due to Covid-19, at times total shutdown of our offices. However, over the last part of the year, restrictions were relaxed and we also engaged stakeholders such as political parties and Civil Society Organizations in anticipating that they will mobilize more voters to come and register.
“Only those who did not register to the run up to 2018 elections and those who turned 18 after 2018 need to register,” said Ncube.
Last year (2021) ZEC shelved the mobile voter registration blitz, that was supposed to start in December saying a number of new registrants had no national Identity Documents (IDs) and were giving them until February to get them, and only then would the electoral body resume the exercise.
ZEC Commissioner Joyce Kazembe was quoted in some sections of the media saying 5 647000 had registered to vote country wide for next year’s elections with 22 000 dead removed from the voters roll.
“By the end of November 2021, we had recorded 5 647000 registers voters from 2023 elections including the new ones and those that had registered in the previous elections.
“The figure provided by the commission was of voter registration in 2021 and is not the cumulative figure in the country’s voter’s roll. Please note that the figure is added to already registered voters in the votes roll,” said Kazembe.
