The Douglas Mwonzora led opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) says elections under the current conditions are a potential nullity because of massive defects in the Zimbabwe Elections Commission (ZEC) delimitation report.
Last Friday, ZEC presented the final delimitation report to President Emmerson Mnangagwa with the commission’s chairperson Justice Priscilla Chigumba saying they have redrawn ward and constituency boundaries.
Speaking to journalists at the party headquarters in Harare on Monday, Mwonzora said the delimitation exercise did not consider the national census results.
“Although we are going to be readying ourselves for elections, we note that the elections if called under the current conditions are a potential nullity because the delimitation report is incurably defective. The major reason for its defect is that it did not consider population density in our country because the population census results are not yet out so you cannot delimit without knowing the population and if we do that that gives rise to gerrymandering so we totally are opposed to elections under the current conditions. Elections under the current delimitation under the current committee report is a nullity but we are preparing for elections and we have not given up on the issue of electoral reforms,” said Mwonzora.
The preliminary report which was tabled before Parliament early this year received widespread condemnation from stakeholders who argued that it was conducted under unclear circumstances, a Parliament ad-hoc committee, tasked to analyse the preliminary report also levelled criticism in its findings.
After the presentation of the final report to President Mnangagwa, it is now up to the President to gazette the report within 14 days from the day of presentation by ZEC.
