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Leonard Ncube, Victoria Falls Reporter
SOME aspiring candidates have expressed concern over the conduct of their rivals who are allegedly tearing apart their campaign posters in violation of the law.

This came out at a multi-party liaison committee meeting held last Friday at Chinotimba Hall in Victoria Falls.

The candidates appealed to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) to urgently look into the matter.

Zec organised the meeting to update candidates on the preparations for the July 30 elections as well as hear candidates’ concerns.

People’s Rainbow Coalition (PRC) candidate for Hwange West Constituency Mr Christopher Ndiweni raised the issue and was supported by many candidates.

“We have a challenge of people who tear posters or put theirs on top of other candidates’ posters. We know some of these people who are sending their supporters to do so but we have restrained ourselves because of Ubuntu knowing that these people are our neighbours,” said Mr Ndiweni.

In response, Zec District Elections Officer for Hwange Ms Sithembile Mlilo said it is an offence to tear other candidates’ posters.

“It is an offence to tear posters and anyone who does that risks being arrested and prosecuted,” she said.

Ms Mlilo took time to explain the electoral process saying a voter education exercise will be done soon.

She said training for ward election officers will be done today and tomorrow while presiding officers will be trained on Wednesday and Thursday, with the final lap for training being that of polling officers on July 24 and July 25.

Ms Mlilo urged candidates to quickly furnish Zec with names of their party agents to speed up accreditation and other logistics.

She said most of election guidelines will be posted at polling stations to help people with critical information.

The number of polling officers and agents per each station will be determined by the size of each polling station, which are categorised into those with more than 500 registered voters and those with less than 200.

Ms Mlilo said by July 30 candidates should have removed their campaign material including posters from polling stations.

Failure to do so, presiding officers will order agents of respective parties or the police to remove such material.

She said the postal ballot is confined to Government workers, diplomats and uniformed forces who will be on duty locally or outside the country and have to apply for it.

Ms Mlilo also said voters will be furnished with a pen in the booth which will be facing the polling room as opposed to facing the wall which was done in previous years.

This, she said, is meant to discourage people from taking snaps of the ballot paper.

“Obviously we can’t search people to avoid them going in with cellphones but we can minimise by being vigilant.

“Those wishing to be assisted to vote can bring their own people who should be above 18 years regardless of whether they are registered or not. No person can help two people to vote,” she said.

@ncubeleon