Resist, Reject and Report Violence, #RRRV2023
Turn Out in Primary Elections
There was a huge turnout in some polling stations a stark contrast to primary elections in the past. Some voters ran
into thousands while in some areas the valid votes were less than the spoiled ballots. The long queues might have
been the result of the cell registers where every community citizen was meant to be listed. People went out to vote
for fear of reprisals if they did not. This could also be the reason why in some polling stations there were more spoilt
ballots than valid ballots. The strategy of forcing every villager on the cell register is also the reason Zanu PF
boasted of 4.5million people on the cell registers but the strange thing is that some people preferred to spoil ballots
rather than vote for Zanu PF candidates. Most people went out to the voting centres so that they would be marked
as having gone to vote thereby guaranteeing security and protection in the election campaign. What was also
strange was the fact that reports indicated many citizens were assisted to vote but what was conspicuous by its
absence on the results forms were the number of assisted voters. If there were no assisted voters as the forms
indicated it remains to be seen if numbers of assisted voters will go down in the harmonised elections.
MARCH 2023
The Zimbabwe Peace Project Monthly Monitoring Report
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