Zimbabwe endures exercises, campaigns and processes for biometric voter registration

Officials of Zimbabwe are in their final days of preparation for the nation’s first mobile biometric voter registration drive.

Beginning on March 12, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission will run a 10-day mobile campaign to get as many potential voters as possible cleared to vote after registering with a fingerprint. It is unclear if the government has ended registration at any point over the last year of preparation.

A year ago, the commission started the first of a multi-phase registration process. A second, ill-defined phase ended last April and officials at the time were getting ready for a delimitation exercise in August.

The delimitation exercise ended and now the commission is going to open the voter rolls to the public to identify mistakes or fraud, if possible.

A catch-up exercise for mobile registration began in February. The government wants to give would-be voters a second chance to register to participate.

All of the work could be for nothing because Zimbabwe’s president must announce the date of any vote. That is, the president is the only person who can announce election day, but there is no obligation for him to ever call an election.

There also is a question about when or if the government will allot the $130 billion to make it happen. The budget has been tabled, according to the regional newspaper The Sunday Mail.

Article Topics

Africa  |  biometrics  |  elections  |  fingerprint biometrics  |  voter registration  |  Zimbabwe