PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS : FORM OF BALLOT PAPER
Clearly the form envisages the names of the candidates being listed vertically, one below the other.
Section 3(11) of the regulations confirms this by saying that in form V.10 “the number of horizontal segments shall equate to the number of candidates nominated for election … to the office of President …” To make it even plainer, the section goes on to specify what each of the “vertical segments” must contain: the “first of the vertical segments” must contain the names of the candidates, the “second vertical segment” must contain the name or abbreviation of each candidate’s political party, and so on.
In terms of the regulations, therefore, the names of the candidates must be listed one below the other in alphabetical order of surnames. This is important because in Zimbabwe as elsewhere people read lists from top to bottom, and the candidate whose name heads the list has a slight advantage over those whose names appear lower down. Under the Act and the regulations that advantage goes to the candidate who, by chance of birth, has a surname that begins with a letter towards the beginning of the alphabet.
What Happens when there are Many Candidates?
What is to be done if the number of presidential candidates becomes so large that, if listed vertically, they will not fit on to a normal sheet of paper? Neither the Act nor the regulations seem to have envisaged this – understandably perhaps, because until last November wise people thought twice before standing in opposition to the incumbent President.
There are two options: either to split the list of candidates into two columns, as ZEC has apparently done, or to list the candidates in one long column on a long thin ballot paper, as the South Africans did in 2014.
Of the two, the second option accords more with what is implied in the Act and the regulations. If the ballot paper has two columns, the names of the candidates in the second column are not contained in “the first of the vertical segments” as required by section 3(11) of the regulations: their names are contained in the sixth vertical segment, i.e. the first segment of the second column.
One can say, therefore, that by listing the candidates in two columns ZEC’s presidential ballot paper does not comply with the Electoral Act and the regulations. It does not comply with it in another respect, too: ZEC has added an extra column numbering the candidates.
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