CHINHOYI - The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) registered more than 727,000 new voters in Mashonaland West from June, 2022, to date in a blitz, which ran concurrently with the issuing of national identity documents.
ZEC told VOA Zimbabwe Service that it registered 616,478 people in the previous blitz in the same region.
Provincial elections officer, Austin Ndlovu, said, “We recorded a steady increase of people registering to vote after the national registration blitz as most people didn't have IDs required to register to vote. When we embarked on the voter registration blitz most people especially the youth had no IDs in the areas visited.”
Ndlovu attributed the increase to politicians’ call for Zimbabweans to register to vote in the forthcoming general elections and provision of transport to registration centers.
Asked if it does not constitute an electoral offence for organisations and individuals to provide transport for people to go and register to vote, Ndlovu said ZEC encourages such activities.
He said, "As ZEC we are very much concerned with whether people have the required documentation for one to be registered and how someone would have travelled is not ZEC's business, actually we are happy that some political parties are ferrying people to registration centres to register to vote."
Mhangura villager Mavis Matsoti, who came in an open lorry to register to vote, said she failed to do so during ZEC’s voter registration blitz because she didn’t have a birth certificate.
"I didn't have a birth certificate but thanks to my political party I'm now a registered voter and besides I have an ID card that will allow me to get inputs and food aid in our area," said Matsoti.
ZEC is still registering people to vote in the forthcoming general elections, expected to held sometime this year.