Good morning gentlepeople.Yesterday our MPs raised a motion that the conduct of the harmonised elections be fully debated in Parliament. In this debate all evidence of voter rigging would be presented to the Parliament and therefore to the people of Zimbabwe, claimed representatives of my party. This got me thinking and I have the following to share with the rest of Zimbabwe gentlepeople. The following headline was our admission in the run up to the elections on the importance of registering new voters. VOTER REGISTRATION EXERCISE: • “We have to register new voters or we perish.” Politics is a game of numbers. From the onset we knew quite clearly that we had to register new voters or else we faced the boot. In all our meetings we reminded each other of the importance of the numbers. This was to be the same during our interactions with our affiliate organs from the Civic Society Organisations, in particular the Zimbabwe Electoral Support Network which time and again updated us of their efforts in the registration of potential voters. Election Resource Center told us of its workshops it held across the country in the voter registration awareness exercise. It told us how in 2010 in areas such as Gwanda – I remember this vividly – it had gone a step further to identify opinion makers in the various wards who were to clandestinely coordinate the registration of first time voters. They spoke glowingly of their partnership with Gwanda Agenda and everyone was left convinced that as a party we were taking this programme very seriously. The official position of the party was that of registering 2 million new voters and we packaged it as follows: PROPOSAL ON TWO MILLION NEW VOTERS The balancing strategy is simple and results oriented. We need to put all MDC resources to voter registration. In Harare and Bulawayo Cities we can register one million new voters. The other one million new voters should come from Masvingo, Manicaland, Mashonaland East, Central and Midlands. The tactical implementation is that per every registered new voter we give one dollar as transport costs. The simple ratio is 1:1 which means $1=1 new registered voter for transport costs. The dollar must be paid upon evidence, proof of a new registered voter slip. This is in line with results based analysis. JUSTIFICATION • This is the best strategy because this strategy does not pass costs to the new voters who are poor. • The strategy is inclusive because everyone is going to participate knowing that there are no costs. • Our youths who have decades of unemployment are going to be motivated and participative as they know that they are not burdened by the party costs. • We have to register new voters or we perish. Whereas official records submitted to Harvest House and other CSO affiliates point to that new voters were registered, the truth that we know in the inner circles of the party today is that is not true. The voter registration exercise became a money spinning project for those mandated to run it. It is not a secret that the mansions being built at the Chishawasha hills smell of money that was supposed to go into voter registration, including the money that was buying expensive whisky at Boot Leggers. It’s only a matter of time before this is made public. Let us wait for the motion to roll.
Posted on: Fri, 18 Oct 2013 12:06:20 +0000
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