The Nelson Chamisa led MDC Alliance has re-ignited its calls for electoral reforms ahead of the 2023 general elections.
Speaking during a press conference in Harare today MDC Alliance secretary for Elections, Ian Makone said despite several attempts to engage the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), the electoral body continues to dither.
“The MDC Alliance has countlessly drawn attention to the inadequacies of current Electoral Act as well as failures of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to implement all measures as are consistent with the independence of an electoral body.
“MDC Alliance has issued, for ease of reference 20 Principles for Reliable, Inclusive and Credible Elections in Zimbabwe (PRICE). We urge stakeholders to review these as we believe that addressing them will automatically put this country on the road to legitimate electoral outcomes,” said Makone.
He said the Government had no zeal to align the Electoral Law to the Constitution despite the poll being two years away.
“The Electoral Act remains unaligned to the Constitution, this despite the fact that the country is only two years away from another round of elections. Clearly there is no appetite from Government to align the Electoral law to the constitution as evidenced by the effort to place this important bill on its legislative agenda.
“In the circumstances we once again call upon the Government through the Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs to cause the alignment of Electoral Act to the Constitution by bringing the electoral bill to parliament as a matter of urgency,” he said.
Makone said they had written to ZEC requesting a stakeholders meeting to discuss issues relating to the conduct of elections.
“As a party we have written to the Commission on several occasions, 9th March 2021 being the latest correspondence requesting the convening of a stakeholder’s forum to discuss all key issues relating to the conduct of elections. It is disheartening and retrogressive to note that the last political stakeholder’s engagement with ZEC was held in February 2018 just before the 2018 harmonised elections.”
