Harare - Zimbabwe’s Election Commission failed to produce the voters roll in time for hundreds of candidates to be processed through nomination courts on Thursday, ahead of elections on July 30.
But the Harare High Court ordered the Commission to immediately release its preliminary version of the roll which it is expected to do within a week. It is not yet clear whether the Commission will release a paper roll or the electronic version which opposition groups say is easier to check.
"The failure of the Zimbabwe Election Commission to supply opposition political parties with an electronic copy of the voters roll is a brazen and inexcusable breach of section 21(4) of the Electoral Act,” former education minister David Coltart said on his Facebook page yesterday.
But eventually, and with all sorts of chaotic moments, and also some good humour and jokes, registration was completed for candidates for Zimbabwe’s presidential, parliamentary, senate and local government elections.
Twenty-three people, among them three women registered as candidates for the presidential poll. But most analysts expect that only two of them, sitting president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, for the ruling Zanu-PF, and Nelson Chamisa for the opposition MDC Alliance, will score significant votes.
Mnangagwa came to power after a coup d’etat last November and quickly allowed more political freedom then Zimbabweans have known before. Another notable candidate standing in the presidential poll is former vice president Joice Mujuru, kicked out of her post and from Zanu-PF nearly four years ago.
Ambrose Mutinhiri was registered as a candidate for the new political party, the National Patriotic Front which former president Robert Mugabe said he supported.
In several constituencies, mostly in Harare and second city Bulawayo, which are MDC strongholds, some opposition candidates who failed to win primary elections, registered as independents which analysts say will split the vote against Zanu-PF.
Full lists of all the candidates were still being finalised late on Thursday.