Anesu Masamvu
HARARE – The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, has said the military will not be transporting election material to and from the polling stations when the country goes to the polls on 30 July.
Addressing a media brief in Harare, the ZEC Chairperson, Priscilla Chigumba, said it is certainly not the military who will be transporting ballot papers.
“Who will transport the ballot papers? It will certainly not be the military, it will be the printers.
“When the ballot paper is delivered to the polling station, the polling officer calls the observers and agents to show them the ballot papers. The ballot papers will have serial numbers which the observers and agents will record. At the end of polling, those persons present will be allowed to record the serial numbers of the surplus ballot papers. We have put measures in place,” Chigumba said.
“Sealing of ballot boxes, accountability of ballots that are used, and accountability of spoiled ballots is usually done at polling station level in this jurisdiction” added the ZEC Chairperson.
Chigumba said that, on polling day, the hard copy voters roll on will have pictures of the electorate.
“The hard copies of the final voters roll which we will use on polling day will have pictures. These pictures are used to identify whether or not you are actually who you say you are, so on the day you will find hard copies with your picture and all the information we have withheld for now,” said Chigumba.
Following a tour by the political parties at fidelity printers at the end of last month, described by the MDC Alliance as a tourist visit, ZEC Commissioner, Qhubani Moyo, said that it would have been unlawful to allow stakeholders to touch the ballot papers during the observation of the ballot printing process.
“What we later heard from political parties was that they wanted to be involved in the process of touching the ballot as well as to get into the printing press. However, this is not allowed in terms of the law.
“We also would like to remind the people of Zimbabwe that the prerogative of the printing of the ballot paper lies with the commission. The process of inviting parties to observe was a way of trying to find consensus and common ground in political parties, so that we can minimise on conflict. We did do our duty and we cannot go beyond that as that would be unlawful,” added Moyo.
To date, the election body has accredited eight hundred and thirty observers for the harmonised polls.
