JUSTICE minister Ziyambi Ziyambi has put his foot down in rejecting repeated calls for Zimbabwean citizens in the diaspora to cast their votes in general elections.
BRENNA MATENDERE
The development comes at a time the country continues to rake in hundreds of millions of dollars in diaspora remittances.
Millions of citizens in the diaspora have been denied a chance to vote since Independence in 1980, yet Zimbabweans who are posted to diplomatic missions do cast their ballots through a postal voting system.
Electoral bodies and opposition parties in Zimbabwe have thus been emphatic in calling for the diaspora vote ahead of next year’s watershed elections.
However, Ziyambi on Wednesday told the National Assembly that the government will never allow the diaspora vote.
His remarks were in response to written questions from the incarcerated Chitungwiza North MP Godfrey Sithole enquiring about the government’s plan to ensure citizens in the diaspora vote in national elections.
In his prepared response to the august House, Ziyambi said the country’s constitution only allows voting in the 210 constituencies that are inside Zimbabwe and nowhere else.
“According to the constitution of Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwean electoral system is constituency-based. In terms of section 160 of the constitution, there are 210 constituencies and they are all located within the boundaries of the country. The constitution does not mandate the setting up of constituencies outside the borders
of Zimbabwe.”
“As decided by the courts in the Gabriel Shumba case, the courts recognised that our country does not have foreign constituencies as of now and since the constitution does not envisage constituencies beyond the borders of Zimbabwe, it follows that no voters’ roll can exist outside the 210 constituencies into which Zimbabwe is divided for voting purposes,” he said.
Ziyambi, who is also the leader of
the National Assembly, claimed that currently no legislative framework regulates voting by citizens in the diaspora.
“If a person requires to vote, he has to be registered in a constituency within Zimbabwe whereby the residential requirement is among the voter registration requirements provided for by our electoral law,” he said.
The diaspora vote has been a contentious matter since the
formation of the opposition MDC which has morphed into the Citizens’ Coalition for Change.
Among electoral reforms that civil society in Zimbabwe insists on is the diaspora vote.
Mutare Central MP and lawyer Innocent Gonese, in an interview with The NewsHawks this week, said Ziyambi’s position on the diaspora vote has no legal basis.
“The pronouncement by the minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs as well as the stance taken by Zanu PF on the diaspora vote is not consistent with provisions of the constitution. The constitution, in terms of section 67 on political rights, is very clear that every adult Zimbabwean citizen has a right to participate in peaceful political activities and also to vote. There is no restriction whatsoever.”
“This is buttressed by the provisions which are in the schedule of the
constitution. They [Zanu PF] are hiding behind a finger in raising the issue of constituencies and so on. It is neither here nor there for the simple reason that the Electoral Act must be in conformity with the provisions of the constitution,” said Gonese.
He said the fact that people on government business abroad and workers at embassies voted meant that everyone else outside the country can also do so easily.
“I therefore submit that the stance taken by Zanu PF is simply a way of depriving citizens with full entitlement to vote their rights. If it is the issue of constituencies that a person must vote in the constituency they were born only, then let’s therefore have a provision that diasporans can vote for the President on the basis they were born in Zimbabwe,” argued Gonese.
Political analyst Rashweat Mukundu told The NewsHawks that the ban on foreign-based Zimbabweans from voting amounts to disenfranchisement.
“The fact that we have postal voting means anyone can vote without being physically in Zimbabwe. The statement that people need to vote only in their constituencies is more of a political statement than a legal one,” he said.
Felix Magalela Mafa Sibanda, the CCC deputy national spokesperson, said Zanu PF feared its own citizens in the diaspora whom it pushed out of the country due to economic mismanagement and political
intolerance.
He reiterated that it was for that reason that the party was desperate to ban voting by people in the diaspora.
“We know Zanu PF is not interested in free and fair elections. What they want is to disenfranchise people who are remitting millions of dollars into the country. They must amend that Electoral Act to be in tandem
with the constitution, but they will not because they are panicking because of imminent defeat at the next elections,” he said.
