HARARE – Government has set in motion plans to transfer the responsibility to register voters from the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) to the Civil Registry Department in sweeping changes to the electoral law meant to streamline the country’s electoral processes, it has been learnt.
The authorities are also contemplating revoking delimitation responsibilities from ZEC, proposing a return to the former system where an independent commission was entrusted with delineating electoral boundaries.
Under the proposed changes, which will require an amendment of the Constitution, all voter registration processes will be handled by the Registrar-General (RG)’s Office, with first-time national identity (ID) card applicants being automatically registered as voters, while deceased individuals are removed from the voters’ roll soon after the issuance of a death certificate.
It is envisaged that moving delimitation responsibilities from ZEC will mitigate redundancy in its administrative functions.
The proposed amendments stem from recommendations made by Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) legislators in the Ninth Parliament ahead of last year’s harmonised elections.
Their contributions were made during debate on changes to the Electoral Amendment Act.
The opposition legislators advocated the restoration of voter registration responsibilities to the RG’s Office, a system that was in place before 2009.
Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi told The Sunday Mail that consultations with stakeholders have begun.
It is believed the proposed amendments will be addressed during the 10th Parliament.
“Towards the end of the Ninth Parliament, we deliberated on the Electoral Amendment Act and, indeed, both parties agreed that the current structure of voter registration under the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission was an anomaly,” he said.
“This is because these are processes that are required to be done at the RG’s Office, at the Civil Registry Department, under the Ministry of Home Affairs (and Cultural Heritage).
“In fact, the opposition, CCC, had brought in an amendment which they thought would be done, but I then indicated to them that it required a constitutional amendment.
“This is because the Constitution is the one that conferred that function of voter registration to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission.
“We have now started consultations . . .
“It will be a neater process, because once one turns 18 years, and they go to apply for an ID, they can easily be registered as a voter under the address they would have provided.
“When one is deceased, the system will automatically remove them from the voters’ roll.”
Such a system, he said, will ensure that Zimbabwe has an authentic voters’ roll, which is “better than the current system where ZEC has to rely on information from the RGs Office”.
Minister Ziyambi said opposition legislators admitted during debate in Parliament that they pushed for the transfer of voter registration responsibilities to ZEC during the Inclusive Government to spite the former RG, Mr Tobaiwa Mudede.
“During the deliberations, the opposition said this amendment had been done because they wanted to spite the then-RG Tobaiwa Mudede.
“So, it was actually called the ‘Tobaiwa Mudede Amendment’, but the consensus is it was wrongly placed.”
He said consultations were also underway to amend the supreme law to allow for an independent commission to take up the responsibilities of drawing up electoral boundaries.
“Again, we had very intense deliberations on the delimitation report,” added Minister Ziyambi.
“The general consensus was ZEC’s mandate should be to conduct elections, thus we must revert back to a system where we used to have a delimitation commission.
“This, again, we agreed in Parliament; it is another area where we might now need to look at.
“We have started on background work to include it if we are to bring in a Constitutional Amendment Bill.”
Once such responsibilities are taken away from ZEC, he further said, the elections management body “will be left with the core function of administering elections, without being involved in the controversies involving the voters’ roll and delimitation”.
Over the past two years, the RG’s Office has issued over a million civil documents, including national ID cards, as well as birth and death certificates.
What they said in Parliament
We republish excerpts of the committee stage debate on the Electoral Amendment Bill that took place on May 18, 2023, where opposition legislators Mr Charlton Hwende and Mr Allan Norman “Rusty” Markham pleaded with Minister Ziyambi to transfer voter registration responsibilities to the RG’s Office.
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Source: National Assembly Hansard (May 18, 2023)
Hon Hwende: . . . what we are suggesting, Mr chairman, is that we must have a mandatory electronic voter register that is kept by ZEC and also by the Registrar-General.
I think if we word it properly, most progressive nations these days, when you register for your ID (card), the whole registration is done by the Registrar (-General).
They have all the details.
There is nothing that stops us from automatically uploading the same information on the voters’ roll that is kept by ZEC.
We want to introduce a new role for the Registrar-General so that there is automatic upload of the data and also that they keep an electronic biometric voters’ roll.
That is what we are seeking to amend.
Hon Markham: Just to buttress what has been said. There are two things: We have the Registrar-General going round the country and has registered more than 1,8 million people and documented.
If this was adopted, those documented people would already be on the voter registration.
If the Registrar-General was automatically registering people to vote, which is their right, it will have been done already biometrically . . . We now have to spend resources to go and do the same job to put them on the voter register.
Hon Ziyambi: This is not a bad amendment, but it is historical. I want to give a background to this. There was so much mistrust in the person of (Tobaiwa) Mudede to the extent that people from the other side said we do not want anything to do with him and because of the compromise, we then said okay, let us have ZEC being the registrar of voters, but technically, it is costing this country a damn lot of money because the system that is at the Registrar-General is biometric. It can do exactly what ZEC is doing.
Over and above that, ZEC currently cannot function without the Registrar-General. If they want to update their voters’ roll to remove those that are deceased, they have to go and clean their system through the Registrar-General’s Office. If they want to know who is now 18, they have to go through that system. In fact, we created this because of our mistrust yamudhara and we threw away the baby with the bath water.
So, my suggestion is, it is not put under the commission and the Registrar-General; in fact, we can park this and continue with it because we need to refine it and get further instructions.
There is no need for the commission to do voter registration. It is actually better to have the separation. The registrar of voters, being the Registrar-General, makes sense, but let us park it. What even Hon Markham was saying makes sense. When the Registrar-General was going, it was biometric registration and he could have easily said okay, do you want to be registered as a voter and the person will say yes, and he is registered.
Hon Markham: We are in total agreement. When it comes to registration, the address that you were given is the address that you were currently residing at. From then, your transfer relies on you but the automatic initial registration at the age of 18 is done automatically. If you move to Bulawayo and you do not register, that is your fault.
Source: Sunday Mail
