The perceived disharmony between the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) and the government over the delimitation report must be urgently addressed so that the electoral process is not jeopardised, Professor Lovemore Madhuku has said.
This comes after the government recently denied claims that had ZEC submitted the final delimitation report document to President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
Speaking on ‘This Morning on Asakhe’, a CITE’s Twitter Spaces current affairs program, Professor Madhuku said there is a lack of clarity over the status of the delimitation report.
“In terms of the constitution, once a final report is presented to the President, the President must gazette it within 14 days and what we have problems with at the moment is that there is a difference between the President’s office and ZEC. ZEC appears to be saying that they submitted the final report while the President’s office says they have not yet received the final report, they only received what they call a revised preliminary report,” said Madhuku.
He said if the President has not yet received the report, he won’t gazette anything within 14 days.
“So, they have to resolve that factual situation, if the President has not yet received the report according to him then he will not gazette anything within 14 days of that receipt. On the other hand, ZEC might be then waiting for 14 days for their report to be gazetted, something that ought to be resolved quickly so that if the President has not yet received the report, then ZEC must ensure that it delivers to him the final report,” said Madhuku.
The electoral body has been hit by a series of controversies ever since embarking on the delimitation exercise.
Some ZEC commissioners are said to have disowned the process leaving the electoral body’s chairperson Justice Priscilla Chigumba and her deputy Rodney Simukai Kiwa to handle the process.
A Zanu PF activist Tonderai Chidawa also approached the Constitutional Court seeking to have the entire delimitation process set aside on the basis that parliament accepted what he claimed to be a flawed report.
Chidawa, who is being represented by Prof Lovemore Madhuku, wants the delimitation exercise investigated and redone.
Speaker of Parliament, Jacob Mudenda, insists that Parliament acted in accordance with the law and cannot be blamed.
