HARARE – President Emmerson Mnangagwa has handed over Parliament’s delimitation report recommendations to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC).
President Mnangagwa said he will hand over his submissions next week.
“I am handing this report which I received yesterday from Parliament, they have gone further to compile debate in Parliament which will give you an insight into the report. These are only Parliament views, but I will present mine on Monday,” he said.
ZEC chairperson Justice Priscilla Chigumba said the commission will deliberate on the recommendations.
‘‘We will gather as a commission to look at all recommendations and look at those that we can accede to and those we can’t accede to and we will compile our own report for His Excellency, the President and state our reasons for acceding to some recommendations and not acceding to others. We are going to take a look at all recommendations. In terms of timelines, the next election is likely to be between 26 July and 24 August, so that means we ought to be able to gazette the final delimitation report sometime end of January or Mid-February,” she said.
Justice Chigumba explained the plus or minus 20 percent distribution on constituencies and wards.
“The constitution provides us with a mathematical formula to keep 210 constituencies. This is the first time that ZEC is delimitating wards as well, and the last time it was done by the local government. In order to delimit wards, the way which we interpret the constitution is that the plus or minus 20 percent is the discretion of the Commission,” she said.
According to the constitution, ZEC must hand over the final delimitation report to President Mnangagwa for gazetting six months before the elections.
