Chegutu West Member of Parliament, Dexter Nduna has applauded the decision to have the so called aliens vote in the 2018 elections saying it embraces constitutionalism.
This comes after High Court ordered the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) to register “aliens” during the ongoing mop up Bio-metric Voter Registration (BVR) exercise currently underway around the country.
Nduna was speaking on the sidelines of a 10 000 tons of rice donation in his constitution where he said, like every Zimbabwean, aliens deserve to vote in line with section 36 (1) of the Constitution on Citizenship by birth which states that, “Persons are Zimbabwean citizens by birth if they were born in Zimbabwe and (2) either their mother or their father was a Zimbabwean citizen.
“This a good decision in terms of constitutionalism as we are no longer ultra vires the constitution. It now means we are in sync with the laws of the country.
“We are all creatures of the constitution and the President (Emmerson Mnangagwa) has said he is the president of everybody who calls him president , including those formerly known as aliens,” he said.
Nduna applauded ZEC for extending the registration process saying he is already busy on the ground mobilizing people in his constituency to register in numbers.
“We are now in the process of encouraging members of the constituency to come in their numbers to vote as they have been given another chance. This also extends to aliens who can now register,” he said.
The BVR exercise was extended to February 8, to cater for people who failed to register for various reasons during the blitz that ended in December last year.
ZEC extended the registration exercise to cater for the so-called aliens and others who failed to register last year.
The electoral body registered 4,7 million people in the initial BVR blitz from an initial target of 7 million. The electoral body has since revised the figure to 5.5 million ahead of the 2018 elections.
Meanwhile, the Chegutu West legislator , through the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare donated 10 000 tons of rice meant to mitigate hunger challenges in his area.
