Youths fear missing out on the ballot
Sithabile Mguni
VICTORIA FALLS- Scores of rural residents, mainly youth around Victoria Falls and Hwange are yet to obtain identity documents as registry centres are not readily accessible from their areas, a development which will may largely impede on their right to vote.
For one to be a registered voter in the country the national identity card is a prerequisite. The majority of youths especially those from the outlying communal lands do not have the document to enable them to register to vote.
Some residents of Jabula, Chikamba and Milonga said that they had been left out in last year’s mobile registration exercises for various reasons which include that some of them had not turned 18 at the time, and lack of access to information about national documents registration and voter registration blitzes. Most of the areas struggle to get mobile networks and the national radio transmission is non-existent, especially in Chikamba on the Zambezi banks.
Youths at Sizinda Business Centre have have asked the Civil Registry and Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to bring back the mobile registration teams to the villages to allow those who could not register during the blitzes to do so ahead of the harmonised election.
” We are appealing to authorities to bring back the mobile registration teams so that we can register. It will be a blow to me if I fail to register to vote. I am 19 years of age now and I need to exercise my rights on the ballot,” said Tassicious Ncube, adding that most of his contemporaries are yet to register in his area.
A Chikamba villager near Hwange town said that the majority of people in his ward are without identity cards. He said: ” There are many without IDs here. The registration team carried out the registration exercise for two days here and this was not enough to register all of us. I suggest that if they decide to come back they should also consider extending the registration hours… we want to vote this year,” he said.
While most of the youths in the rural areas are clamouring for identification documents, their counterparts in the city of Victoria Falls are obtaining the IDs at relative ease although their chances of registering to vote are also slim since the registration centre is stationed at Hwange ,102km from the resort city.
” I am pleased to say that in the city there is no difficulty in obtaining the identity documents. However, my worry is that unless something is done, I may not be able to vote. I am not yet registered to vote because I cannot afford to travel to Hwange to register, ” said Marble Ndlovu, a resident of the Railways section of Chinotimba suburb.
Residents of Victoria Falls and Hwange allege that last year’s registration blitzes were rushed and not properly advertised leading to fewer people benefitting from them.
Without giving dates, last week Thursday, the Minister of Home Affairs, Kazembe Kazembe said a mobile national registration blitz was on the cards to ensure everyone needing national ID cards can register to vote as voters if they have not done so and ensure that all registered voters who may have lost their cards have the replacement national ID they need to exercise their vote. The country will hold harmonised elections this year.
