HARARE – President Emmerson Mnangagwa has officially launched the election season by gazetting August 23 as the voting day for Zimbabweans.
He also set June 21 as the deadline for candidates to register for the polls. The electoral laws require that the nomination day be within two weeks of the proclamation, and the voting day be within two months of the nomination day.
If none of the candidates wins more than 50% of the votes, a runoff will take place on October 2.
The proclamation comes as the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) faces criticism over errors on the voters’ roll, which was opened for inspection at the weekend. Opposition officials have raised concerns about the accuracy and credibility of the register.
The proclamation also means that new voters have only two more days to register to be eligible for this year’s election.
In addition, the proclamation effectively shuts out any electoral reforms that were being discussed in Parliament. This is because no changes can be made to electoral laws once the date has been announced.
The election will be based on the boundaries drawn by ZEC’s delimitation process, which was completed earlier this year. However, ZEC’s report was widely condemned by MPs from both ZANU PF and the opposition, CCC and MDC-T, who said it had serious errors in the distribution of voters among the 210 constituencies. A legal challenge by Douglas Mwonzora to overturn that report was dismissed by the court.
