The MDC Alliance has raised the red flag over the printing of ballot papers at Fidelity Printers and Refiners ahead of this month’s general elections, describing the process as a tourist guided tour.
Following contestation over the transparency and security features of the ballot paper, the country’s electoral administration body last week invited political parties to witness the printing of the ballots before the July 30 polls.
However MDC-Alliance chief elections agent Jameson Timba on Monday said the opposition coalition was not satisfied with the manner in which the process was carried out
“When the party’s got there, they were put in a balcony and pointed twenty meters away from the balcony through a glass that, that is where the printing is taking place and that cannot be described as observing the printing of a ballot paper” Timba said.
“Under normal circumstances, what is expected is that you walk into the printing facility, ZEC will then give you the planned print run that we will be printing a ballot from serial number this to serial number that giving us a quantity of this and the law now specifies that they cannot print an excess of 10% of the registered voters, that did not happen,” he said.
Timba also expressed concerns over ZEC’s failure to provide the specimen of the ballot paper saying this was government ploy to rig the polls.
“Political parties were in essence tourists visiting a government printing facility of a security nature where you find your gold and your currency but they did not observe the printing of the ballot papers as previously committed to by ZEC,” said Timba.
