PF questions ECZ over voter registration

PF questions ECZ over voter registration
By Chibaula Silwamba
Mon 19 July 2010, 04:01 CAT

THE Patriotic Front (PF) has charged that the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) might indirectly disenfranchise some Zambians because of ambiguities in the on-going voter registration exercise.

In a letter dated July 12, 2010 to ECZ chairperson, PF secretary general, Wynter Kabimba, highlighted several questions that the elections body had not answered about the registration exercise.

“I refer to the above continuous voter registration exercise, which commenced on 21st June, 2010. I write on behalf of members of the Patriotic Front and other stakeholders who have raised the following questions in respect of the on-going national registration exercise: - (i) is the exercise going on in all prescribed polling stations/centres simultaneously? (ii) if the answer to (i) above is, yes, how come ECZ officers are absent from some of these polling centres, (iii) if the answer to (i) is no, how do would-be voters know when the remaining centres will be covered by ECZ officers?” Kabimba asked.

“(iv) Does the on-going exercise mean that those people who registered in 2006 and are still in possession of a voter’s card do not have to register this time around? What if a person has moved from his residence or polling centre or district in which he/she registered as a voter in 2006? When a person eligible to obtain a new voter’s card during this exercise? (vii) how does a person identify his/her polling centre for purposes of registration with such limited publicity of road signs leading to these centres?”

Kabimba stated that it was surprising that the questions in his letter had been by a cross section of the party’s stakeholders without exception.

He stated that that was evidence that unless ECZ takes steps to address those concerns, the voter registration exercise might not achieve the intended purposes at all.