BY BRENDA NCUBE
Hwange Central Constituency, through the office of the Member of Parliament (MP) says it is continuing with the voter’s registration awareness campaign which it launched towards the end of last year, amid realisation that the district’s youth turnout remains low.
The campaign is targeting all unregistered eligible voters who are residents of Hwange Central constituency.
The constituency seeks to boost the number of registered voters up to atleast 25 000 by the time the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) closes registration in preparation for 2023 elections.
It currently has 22 000 voters.
In an interview with VicFallsLive, Daniel Molokele, who is the constituency MP said the number of people coming through for registration has been low, especially the youths, thus they have patterned with the counsillors to encourage the residents by giving them free transport and some refreshments.
“The May 2022 Zec report said that we have about 22 636 eligible voters registered, which is the minimum threshold,” Molokele said.
“This is why we need to continue to register more people so that by the time Zec closes registration we should be around 25000.
“We need to play our part (and) I am reaching out to Hwange citizens and councilors to play their part to increase the number because there are still a lot of people who are not registered and can still be registered, especially the youths.”
The process, according to Molokele is firstly done by the ward councilors who compile a list of people who need assistance to go for registration and send it to his office for logistics.
“We support with transport logistics and sometimes even buy some drinks and water for refreshments from our own pockets and friends in the diaspora,” he said.
“With Zec’s proposed delimitation exercise for constituencies that did not reach the maximum threshold, the idea is to mop up as many unregistered voters as possible to meet the maximum threshold, especially the youths and school leavers who stand to benefit more as they are the future.” he added Molekele.
This comes after Zec had proposed a delimitation exercise which has been presented to President Emmerson Mnangagwa and Matebeleland North Province’s affected constituencies are in Tsholotsho and Hwange districts.
The parliamentarians in these two districts have argued that the proposed delimitation is unwarranted and illegal.
The matter is yet to be discussed at the National Assembly.
For instance, Hwange West constituency, ward two was delimited at 2267 above the maximum threshold of 2211.
They argue that Zec used a wrong maximum threshold of 2211 instead of 2188, but the wards were still above maximum threshold of both values.
Also, ward 17 which falls under Hwange Rural District Council in the Hwange East Constituency was proposed to be delimited at 2213 above the maximum threshold of 2188 which is the same case with ward 11.
Tsholotsho North Constituency’s ward eight was delimited at 2096 above maximum threshold of 2086, as well as Hwange West Constituency’ ward four.
Molokele said the process of registration is going to continue until Zec closes the registration.