EDWIN MOYO
GWERU-Newly formed political outfit, United Zimbabwe Alliance (UZA) has bemoaned the shrinking political space ahead of 2023 harmonised elections saying a lot needs to be done to even the playing field.
The call was made by UZA president, Elisabeth Valerio, during a press conference in Gweru recently.
Valerio who happens to be the first woman presidential candidate to declare her interest to stand in this year’s elections, added that her party was going to unite the citizens in order to build the country going forward.
“Our Alliance is with the Zimbabwean citizens, but already the electoral playing field is not even for all political players to freely carry out their activities. The delimitation report is already causing disputes as parties are not in agreement. We have even seen ZEC being taken to court by others who are challenging the delimitation outcome.
“I don’t like to use the term opposition when referring to parties who are not in government, rather opposition parties are parties who want to change the way of governance and they are not at war with anyone.
“As UZA we believe women can make a difference and develop the nation. Soon we are launching our manifesto and more details regarding the course we are going to take as a party will be availed to the nation.” she added.
Valerio had some misgivings on the way the current voter registration blitz is going about.
“Currently there is a voter registration exercise which is ongoing and we have received reports on challenges affecting the process.
“There is not enough information on registration centres, access to IDs is very limited, the process is deliberately slow to frustrate would be voters and the process of getting the IDs is unclear to prospective voters.
“We need to educate and capacitate the citizens when it comes to national programs. There are also reports of intimidation of voters, we don’t want that as well.
A new registrant who reside in Senga, Gweru (name witheld) said the voter registration process was frustrating to a lot of young people.
“I was very pleased to see my fellow youths flocking to go and register to vote but the process was slow and dragging.
“Some of the youth who wanted to register found the process very slow and they decided to go back as they could not endure the long slow moving queues. ZEC must be more serious, there is need for them to have generators since there is a lot of load shedding,” he said.
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, Gweru District Officer Joshua Mhino couldn’t be reached for a comment on the ongoing blitz.
Last week the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) extended the voter registration blitz to Sunday 26 March last week.
When the exercise began, the electoral management body blamed poor weather conditions among other issues for disrupting the registration exercise.
