Election Resource Centre has challenged Zimbabwe Election Commission to deal with all reported cases of politically motivated violence as a way of proving its capacity to manage credible elections Zimbabwe.
This comes after ZEC failed to deal with politically motivated violence in the countless by-elections held in the country since 2013, latest being the hotly contested Norton by-election where independent candidate and eventual winner, Temba Mliswa had his members attacked by alleged Zanu PF youths without action from the electoral body.
Election Resource Center Director, Tawanda Chimhini underscored the need for ZEC to start acting against perpetrators of political violence if the Commission is to salvage the lost confidence from the electorate.
He said although ZEC has been engaging key election stakeholders, which is a step in the right direction, it is imperative for the body to start using the Code of Conduct to whip those implicated in political violence.
“Although ZEC has been engaging key stakeholders, there is still great need for them to act decisively on violence which is recorded in almost election. It should use the Constitution to come up with free, fair and credible elections.
“Election violence is not only an act against the constitution, but it also against the ZEC Code of Conduct and as the mother body, it is mandated to act tough and speak against such a practice which has become normal in almost every election,” Chimhini said.
He further stated that election violence must be taken seriously urging ZEC to summon political parties implicated in the violation of the election Code of Conduct.
“As long as ZEC keeps quite against perpetrators of election violence will never have free, fair and credible elections in Zimbabwe. The onus is them to redeem themselves by speaking out and acting against that evil practice. If they fail to do that, then we will still have all the same problem, people will still be beaten in the run up to elections. Intimidation will still be there and people will never vote freely,” The ERC boss declared.
