The ERC will be tracking and monitoring the Mhondoro-Mubaira Constituency by election to be held on the 5th of March 2016. The by election comes after the expulsion of Hon. Sylvester Nguni from ZANU PF and consequently a recall from Parliament. Zimbabwe Election Commission (ZEC) conducted voter education, voter registration and voters roll inspection for the election. ZEC through its voter registration drive captured 20409 and the 2013 voters’ roll has 16232 and that provides an overall total of 36641 voters. ZEC established 58 polling stations for the purposes of the by-election.
The Election Resource Centre community based process trackers for the Parliamentary by-election will be guided by the following frameworks: the environmental, legislative and administrative. This will be aided by citizens who have access to the online texting platform which will largely capture the environmental and administration of the election.
The ERC election process tracker will particularly focus on the following key areas in election administration:
- The ERC will continue to monitor how the polling station specific voting is being implemented. Previous by elections in Nkulumane and Marondera Central have shown that those in the main roll created by ZEC are the authentic potential voters while some in the roll created by the Registrar-General Voters supplementary roll are non-existent and possible ghost voters in the 2013 voters’ roll. This is supported by the numbers that cast their votes from each of the rolls.
- The environment will also be monitored closely for violence and intimidation, the ERC has noted in previous elections that on election day little, if at all, violence and intimidation takes place. However, as noted above, pre-election violence and intimidation would have effect on Election Day turn-out and voting patterns.
- In most rural constituencies were ERC conducted various activities including election process tracking chiefs and village heads have been implicated in partisan activities thus the ERC will closely scrutinise this important level of leadership during the election and after the polls. ERC will track the constitutionality of the behaviour of traditional leaders and has previously called for the codification of traditional leaders conduct in the electoral regulations.
- Previous by elections have been characterised by low voter turnout and general lack of interest thus ERC will be closely tracking citizens interest in the polls.
