The leader of the MyRightToVote campaign, Nhlanhlayamangwe Felix Ndiweni has castigated the postponement of the mobile voter registration exercise by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) saying it was part of a well-ochestrated plan to rig the 2023 elections.
Ndiweni, who is now based in the United Kingdom, after he was dethroned as the Ntabazinduna Chief, said the government through ZEC was trying to exclude citizens from registering as voters.
“Elections are fixed and rigged well, well before the election date. They are fixed and rigged by the systems that are adopted by the government of the day,” he charged.
Ndiweni also added that the failure to issue identity documents contributed to their failure to exercise their right to vote.
“We already know that there are millions and millions of people not registered on the voters roll in Zimbabwe because they do not have Identity papers and/or birth certificates. Roughly 400 000 are the descendants of the labour force that came from Malawi and Zambia between 1955 -1985” said Ndiweni.
“We then have the victims and survivors of the Ndebele genocide that run into the high hundreds of thousands who also could not get identity documents because the state refused to give their dead relatives death certificates, that were stamped, cause of death “Genocide by government of the day”.
Ndiweni said the timing to suspend the exercise was calculated as it coincided with the holidays were a lot of Zimbabweans based in other countries usually trek back home to visit their families.
“It is in this month of December that most people would have returned to their places of residence. Where they would likely vote come the election. Now, these people cannot register to be on the voters roll. Of greater concern are the hundreds of thousands who are all returning from the SADC diaspora for Christmas break, this month, the month of December,” he said.
