The Citizens’ Coalition for Change (CCC) has said it will deploy 12,374 polling agents to every polling station on August 23 to prevent the ruling Zanu-PF party from “rigging” the election.
Speaking at a rally in Bulawayo on Sunday, CCC presidential candidate Nelson Chamisa said the party had been advised that Zanu-PF wants to make use of “ghost polling stations” in order to manipulate the figures.
“We are having a challenge with ghost polling stations. They [Zanu-PF] want to bring ghost polling stations so that they may rig the results, we have already countered that,” Chamisa said.
“We have made sure that we have 12,374 polling agents across the country. Each polling station will be having a polling agent from CCC.”
Chamisa also said he has been briefed by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) on the election preparations, and that he has registered the party’s misgivings.
“I told SADC that up to this day, contrary to what is happening in other countries, we do not have a voter’s roll that we can analyse. They thought that when they gave us the PDF format, they would not be able to crack it,” Chamisa said.
“I told them also that I have not seen the ballot paper save for what we saw during the police postal voting.”
Chamisa said the CCC has requested a sample of the ballot paper from the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) so that they can agree on the quality, ink to be used and on the arrangement, but that they have not received a response.
“We realized that Mnangagwa has already rigged the arrangement. He may rig it [the arrangement] but he will not rig the results,” Chamisa said.
Chamisa also said he has been informed that Zanu-PF wants the results of the presidential elections first so that they can report to ZEC and play around with the figures.
“We have said to ourselves, we will make use of V11’s. Once we get our results, we will tell the world what we have. We will be the first ones to know the results, we will not allow Zanu-PF to cheat us again,” Chamisa said.
“By 24 August we will be having the results.”
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) has warned against the announcement of election results before they are announced by the electoral management body.
