Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) Harare East Member of Parliament, Allan Markham, has called for the Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs to bring the SADC report to Parliament for debate and to explain to MPs what caused the shortage of ballot papers in the August 23 harmonised elections.
The polls were marred by massive delays and shortage of ballot papers mainly in Harare and Bulawayo despite the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) declaring that they were ready.
In their final report on Zimbabwe’s August harmonized election, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) maintained that the polls fell short of accepted regional and international standards.
Markham said that ZEC had initially communicated that they had enough ballot papers, but that on election day, some polling stations ran out of ballot papers.
“My point of national interest refers to the meeting that the Zimbabwe Electoral had with the international observers on 17th August 2023, before the elections. They read out and advertised that sufficient ballot papers had been printed to the extent that, on the Presidential ballot papers totalling 7.6% more ballot papers that were required were printed and ready for distribution. The same was for the National Assembly ballot papers and Madam Speaker, for the local ballot papers, 3.5% of ballot papers more than required were submitted in paragraphs (c), (d) and (e) they were ready for the elections come what may,” he said.
Markham also said that the issue of ballot papers was brought up in the SADC report, which was recently adopted. He asked that the SADC report be laid on the table of Parliament so that it could be debated.
The deputy speaker of parliament, Tsitsi Gezi, advised Markham to put his request in writing so that the Minister responsible could bring a comprehensive copy to Parliament.
