ERC, ZESN dismiss Zanu PF allegations
Gift Nyathi
Electoral think tank, Election Resource Centre and the Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) have dismissed claims that they are involved in an eye-watering USD$ 10 million initiative to train 12 500 election agents for each political party contesting in the 2023 elections.
Zanu PF’s finance department had earlier alleged that ERC and ZESN received a donation to the tune of USD$ 10 million for the training exercise.
The ruling party had further claimed that the fund had been donated by the UK, France, Australia, USAID, Sweden, Japan, the US Embassy in Harare, the US-based National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the European Union.
“On 21 June 2023 , ZANU-PF Treasurer General Patrick Chinamasa in a statement stated that it has come to the notice of ZANU-PF Department of Finance that ERC have announced that they are putting together a donation of US$10 million for the training of 12500 Election Agents for each of the Political parties participating in the upcoming harmonized elections,” said ERC in a statement.
The organisation categorically refuted the allegation as it said it was not aware of such a donation, nor did it have any plans for a programme of that nature.
ZESN also refuted the allegations, stating that training political party agents was not part of its mandate.
“The Network’s mandate is to promote democratic elections in Zimbabwe through domestic oversight on all electoral processes such as voter registration, nomination, pre and post-electoral environment and polling day processes among others.”
“ZESN reiterates that it does not and will not finance and or train any political party agents as this is not part of its core business and mandate, neither does ZESN support or endorse any political party or candidate in Zimbabwe,” said ZESN.
The Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) is a network of 37 non-governmental organisations formed in 2000 to co-ordinate activities related to the promotion of democratic processes, particularly free and fair elections.
