THE Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) has let the country’s citizens down by failing to run Saturday’s by-elections smoothly and fairly, Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) national spokesperson Fadzayi Mahere has said.
This comes amid numerous reports of irregularities in almost all constituencies and wards where elections have been taking place.
Mahere said her party now has doubts the commission is competent enough to run the 2023 general election.
“We have said that this by-election was a dry run to next year’s general elections and we wanted to put ZEC to a serious test to see if it is capable and today we can safely say ZEC has failed the citizens,” Mahere told journalists at a press conference in Harare late Saturday afternoon.
“We have had several issues whereby our polling agents were turned away and names of voters were moved from one constituency to the other. We have received reports of violence in Kwekwe; our agents being beaten up. We are saying violence should be a thing of the part,” she said.
“We had a situation in Mutare where our agent stood up to ZEC machinations and we saw him getting arrested for that,” she said before boldly declaring: “Citizens are ready to defend their vote.”
