ZEC evaluates voter education partners
THE Zimbabwe Electoral Commission is in the process of checking if voter education partners are in compliance with provisions of the Electoral Act ahead of 2023 general elections whose date is set to be announced.
This precedes inspection of the voter’s roll which is set for the end of July.
According to ZEC, the Commission is mandated to monitor all voter education partners to ensure there is no bias or misinformation.
In a statement ZEC said the process is ongoing and once its complete, the commission will communicate findings and take action against those who will be found wanting.
“The Commission is in the process of checking compliance of its Voter Education Partners as prescribed in the Electoral Act which provides for adequate accurate gender sensitive and unbiased voter education. ZEC should ensure that voter education provided by other persons is adequate and not misleading or biased in favour of any political party and complies with the electoral code of conduct for political parties and candidates,” said ZEC.
“We should ensure that persons and organizations permitted to conduct voter education comply with the law which mandates the commission to monitor voter education conducted by other persons and organizations. We will also monitor to see if the materials and voter education programmes being used on the ground are not false, misleading and skewed in favor of or against a political party or candidate contesting the election and that the programme is likely to prevent a substantial number of voters from making an informed political choice in an election. “
ZEC spokesperson Commissioner Mangwana said this monitoring will run concurrently with other pre-delimitation programmes until the end of June.
He said the commission had managed to cover a number of key stakeholders in engagements and will soon share the roadmap with members of the public based on findings from these engagements.
ZEC also called for alteration of the voters’ rolls for the Constituencies and wards to correct errors contained according to recently published Government Gazette.