Zimbabwe Polls: 485,827 persons register ahead of Presidential elections

The Zimbabwean Electoral Commission (ZEC) on Tuesday said, so far, 485,827 people had been registered to vote in the 2018 general elections since Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) started a month ago.

ZEC chief elections officer, Constance Chigwamba, was quoted by the state broadcaster ZBC as saying that the figure, however, excludes submissions from 610 out of the 2,591 voter registration centers as at October 15.

ZEC is targeting to register seven million voters in the 2018 polls, up from 6.8 million in the 2013 elections.

Mr. Chigwamba said the 610 centres could not submit their figures by Oct. 15 due to connectivity and communication challenges.

She said some of the registration officials have to drive long distances to get to places that have networks or fixed mobile phones to convey their statistics.

Voter registration at static district centers began on Sept. 18 while the national mobile blitz commenced on October 10.

A total of 2, 697 BVR kits have been deployed for the exercise.

However, political parties have expressed concern at the slow pace of the registration exercise.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, 93, will seek re-election in next year’s polls after his party endorsed him as its presidential candidate.

Source: (Xinhua/NAN)