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Registrar-General Tobaiwa Mudede

The countdown to the 2018 harmonised elections has started and all Government departments involved in the elections have started the preparations to enable eligible Zimbabweans to vote in the elections. On Monday the Registrar-General’s Office rolled out a three-month national mobile registration exercise for national identity cards, birth and death certificates ahead of voter registration.

During the exercise, people will be able to obtain machine readable plastic national identity cards. The Registrar- General Mr Tobaiwa Mudede said the mobile registration centres will open at 7am and close at 7pm from Monday to Friday and during weekends they will open at 7am and close at 4pm.

The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) also started a five-day BVR Master trainers and Technicians’ training workshop on Monday as part of preparations for the voter registration. Addressing participants to the workshop, Zec chairperson Justice Rita Makarau said the success of the biometric voter registration (BVR) exercise hinged on the integrity and professionalism of the commission. Justice Makarau said the participants who are drawn from all the country’s ten provinces, will be deployed countrywide to carry out some of the duties of Zec.

She said the officers will be under strict instructions to always follow the law as directed by Zec. “We give you instructions based on the law because we want to conduct our elections in accordance with the law,” said Justice Makarau.

She urged the participants to be very professional when executing what she described as a very important electoral task. She said the officers’ professional conduct will go a long way in making the 2018 elections free, fair and credible.

Mr Mudede on his part has urged Zimbabweans to take advantage of the mobile registration exercise to enable them to obtain the documents required for voter registration. Mr Mudede said the plastic IDs which are made of polythene and synthetic material have an added advantage of being biometric.

Justice Makarau has since corrected the earlier misconception that people cannot use metal identity cards to register as voters. She said the legal position is that all adult Zimbabweans are eligible to register as voters and the required documents are metal identity card, plastic identity card, waiting pass with a picture of the holder and a valid passport.

Mr Mudede however said people should take advantage of the mobile voter registration to discard metal identity cards in favour of the machine readable plastic IDs introduced in 2010. This does not mean that those with metal IDs cannot register as voters. Mr Mudede’s department and Zec complement each other with Mr Mudede’s department providing the important documents that are demanded by Zec for voter registration.

We have already stated that the RG’s office should ensure every corner of Zimbabwe is covered to enable the people to obtain the documents required for voter registration. Zec’s challenge is to come up with a clean voters’ roll so that next year’s harmonised elections are not just free and fair but are also credible.

The voter registration will follow the national mobile registration so it is our fervent hope that by the time Zec embarks on the voter registration exercise, the RG’s office would have covered a lot of ground and most of the eligible voters will have obtained the required documents.

We want at this juncture to once again implore the community leaders at all levels to assist in the awareness campaigns so that people obtain the important documents as well as register to vote in next year’s elections. It is every adult Zimbabwean’s right to participate in the elections to choose leaders that preside over our governance issues.