Renewal Democrats of Zimbabwe, (RDZ) president Elton Mangoma has revealed that his party will not tolerate the Biometric Voting System (BVS) saying this system of voting will pave way for Zanu PF and the Rita Makarau led Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) to rig the 2018 elections.
Despite, civic society groups welcoming efforts by the ZEC to find ways of implementing a biometric voters’ roll in Zimbabwe, Mangoma yesterday told journalists that BVR is still relatively new and not yet perfect.
He cited the Nigerian incident, in which BVR failed to recognize Goodluck Jonathan as an example.
“A computer system can be manipulated and we have very few people with the skills to detect such manipulation. This will be giving Zanu PF and ZEC a free hand to rig with the permission of the political parties.
“ZANU PF and ZEC control the passwords and and they can alter that at any time.These are the very people whom Zimbabweans do not trust. Remember whoever has the authority to add a voters data, can change or delete it and non of us can ever detect it,” said Mangoma.
Mangoma also urged other political parties and civil society organisations to think and verify before they endorse BVR saying, “a computer system requires electrical power, which is extremely short in Zimbabwe, many of the rural polling station have no electricity and are far from facilities.”
In his speech, Mangoma said that RDZ condemns ongoing housing demolitions which he attributed to the ‘cruel and heartless’ ZANU PF government and MDC-T local authorities.
He added that his party was assisting victims of house demolitions.
“We are assisting some of the victims to make sure there is compensation. We are also in the process of negotiating with the city fathers to stop the demolitions,” he said.
