Maravi

PF fears errors in voter’s register will disenfranchise many

PF fears errors in voter’s register will disenfranchise many
By Ernest Chanda and Brina Manenga
Mon 13 June 2011, 16:00 CAT

COMPUTER errors reflecting on the provisional voters’ register are likely to disenfranchise a lot of people, says Evaristo Kasunga. In an interview, Kasunga who is a member of the opposition Patriotic Front expressed concern that the situation was worse in rural areas. Kasunga said in Mbala, where he was at the time of the interview, that several people’s details had been distorted.

“I have just come from a tour of several polling stations in the villages here in Mbala and what I have found out is that most people’s birth records are showing January 1st 1800. Surely, which human being can live for 200 years and appear in today’s voters’ register? Kasunga said.

“And the most worrying part is that people experiencing such problems are being sent away to other polling stations. They are made to walk distances of between 10 and 20 kilometres because ECZ Electoral Commission of Zambia people are saying that’s where the machine is to rectify the problems. I suggest to the ECZ that these machines should be mobile so that everyone is catered for in all the polling stations. It will not be fair to have too many people disenfranchised on account of errors that should have been taken care of.”

Kasunga also bemoaned the low turnout of people wishing to verify their details at polling stations in Mbala District.

He attributed the problem to poor publicity from ECZ and the harvest season, which kept most of the people busy.

“You know, generally Mbala is a farming area and this is harvest season; so people are busy in their fields harvesting. And because of that they are not finding time to go and verify their details at polling stations. I just hope that ECZ will extend this exercise to allow more people participate in the process,” said Kasunga.

And National Restoration Party (NAREP) said the closure of Radio Lyambai in Mongu partly contributed to the low turnout of voters verifying their details.

Party national secretary John Phiri said the limited access to information in Western Province was an infringement on people’s rights.

He said the party was saddened that people in the province had little access to important information despite this year being an election year.

“We have been carrying out our own surveys in the province to see how many people have been able to show up to verify their details.

Unfortunately we have noted that there are very few people who are going to these inspection centres to verify their details,” said Phiri in an interview. “From the talk we have had with the inspectors, we have discovered that only 20 people per day are verifying their details compared to the large number of registered voters.

Some of the rural voters we have talked to said information about the voter verification exercise has not reached them so they were not aware.”
He said the infringement of people’s rights on access to information in Mongu would deprive the voters of important electoral information.

“Right now they are just relying on Radio Liseli. However, Radio Lyambai had a large following and people had access to a lot of information in their local language. So an extension of the exercise is required if more people in Mongu are to verify their details,” said Phiri.

The voter verification exercise closed yesterday and the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) says it will not extend the exercise because the voters’ register has to be ready for inspection by July 31, 2011.

However, there have been several complaints of wrong names, National Registration Card numbers while other people have totally been omitted from the registers.

Labels: ECZ, EVARISTO KASUNGA, NAREP, PF, VOTER REGISTRATION

posted by MrK @ 6:32 PM