Resist, Reject and Report Violence, #RRRV2023
In the month under review High Court Judge Never Katiyo dismissed an application by the Citizen’s Coalition
for Change (CCC) Harare North Member of Parliament, Alan Makharm, in which he was demanding the
release of the voter’s roll. The judge raised security concerns, stating that the Zimbabwe Electoral
Commission (ZEC) was mandated to safeguard the voter’s roll, especially the electronic one, claiming it
could be tampered with in this age of social media and compromise the database.Mr Markham took ZEC to
the High Court in October last year after the Commission had refused to hand over the voter’s roll. He
specifically wanted the Commission to provide an electronic voters’ roll alleging that the 58 days ZEC said it
needed to produce a printed copy was unacceptable and too long a time. ZEC offered, for a fee, to print the
voters roll and stated that any voter has the right to walk into the ZEC offices and look at the roll free of
charge. In his ruling, Justice Katiyo stated that the applicant approached the court prematurely before
exhausting the available remedies. He also stated that the Electoral Act mandated ZEC to safeguard the
electronic voters’ roll. ZEC has been refusing to release the electronic version of the voters roll on the
grounds that this would compromise the security of its database, a contention which Justice Katiyo
accepted and ruled in its favour. Mr Markham, in his application, claimed to have written to ZEC illustrating
various anomalies on the voters’ roll.
According to the World Happiness Report released on 20 March, Zimbabwe is the world’s fourth unhappiest
country, after Afghanistan, Lebanon and Sierra Leone. Citizens cannot be happy when their rights and
freedoms are violated. Cases of Zanu PF activists allegedly forcing villagers and residents to attend its cell
verification meetings have been on the increase ahead of the impending general elections, violating their
political rights. One such case took place on 6 March where Zanu PF youths allegedly went door-to-door in
Eastlea suburb, east of Harare, demanding that people attend a cell verification meeting addressed by local
leaders. A self-proclaimed Prophet of John the 5th of Africa Apostolic church with over 800 000 followers
made sensational claims that God would reward everyone who votes for Zanu PF in the next polls with 15
more years of life, over and above those they were meant to live, highlighting politicisation of religion.
MARCH 2023
The Zimbabwe Peace Project Monthly Monitoring Report
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