The obtaining political situation in the country has come at a cost to the current voter registration exercise which has record low turnout since the beginning of skirmishes in Harare last week Wednesday.
Addressing a press conference in Harare on Monday, Election Resource Centre (ERC) and Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) have reported that the current state of affairs in the country had impacted on the bio-metric voter registration exercise.
ZESN Chairperson, Andrew Makoni called for an extension of the voter registration exercise saying events of the past week had affected turnout at the various centres across the country.
“We urge the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) to complete the BVR process and possibly extend beyond previously scheduled dates as current indications are showing low turnout in some regions,” said Makoni.
The briefing was meant to enforce electoral reforms that would lead to credible and legitimate elections as ZESN and ERC believe that, “The political developments in Zimbabwe will inevitably lead to an election.”
The two organisations have also come up with five fundamental requirements in a bid for Zimbabwe to hold a credible election which include new electoral law, voter registration which is free from political bias, ZEC independence, political environment devoid of violence, intimidation and with all stack holders and election observation.
“We continue to push and lobby for Zimbabweans living abroad to be able to register although its not within our rights to provide such a platform for them all we can do is to just encourage the relevant authority ZEC” added Makoni.
Meanwhile just before the recent events Harare province was among the provinces that recorded the lowest number of having registered only 20% of the city’s eligible voters.
According to ZEC, 2,745,837 out of the targeted 7 million have already registered as at 20 November 2017.
