Zimbabwe Electoral Commission gets a thumps up for a change

The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission which has been under siege from opposition parties, mainly the Movement for Democratic Change Alliance, for trying to rig the coming elections in favour of the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front has got a thumps up for a change but this is from a little known organisation called the Leaders for Africa Network.

LAN which says it is an independent governance focused think-tank established on the values of pan-Africanism to spearhead academic advocacy for socio-economic policy-making processes says 70 percent of Zimbabweans believe that ZEC is a non-partisan organisation.

It says it carried out a nation-wide survey of eligible voters from 7 June to 2 July involving 2 500 adults.

Its finding, it says, centred on ZEC’s capacity to make decisions which are not influenced by any political party and how it has an all-inclusive approach to dealing with the interests of all political parties.

Only 7 percent of those polled said ZEC was partisan.

A survey carried out in April-May by African think-tank Afrobarometer showed that 53 percent of those polled thought ZEC was neutral.

Only 44 percent of those in urban areas felt so but were drowned by the 58 percent from rural areas who said it was neutral.

Some 42 percent of those in urban areas felt that ZEC favoured certain people, parties or interests compared to only 24 from rural areas.

MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa has given the ZEC an ultimatum to address the voters’ roll and the printing of the ballot papers.

He threatened to take unspecified action if this is not addressed but said he would not boycott the elections because had already won them.

Chamisa said ZANU-PF leader Emmerson Mnangagwa was being careless and reckless about the polls because he had already lost and was now leader of the opposition.

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