The Zimbabwe Election Support Network is calling on the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) to accredit local civic society organisations to conduct voter education, in view of the impending harmonised elections.
Sunday Opinion by ZESN
ZESN notes that the country is already in an election mode, hence the need for ZEC to expedite the accreditation of civic society organisations that have applied to complement the commission’s efforts in conducting comprehensive voter education.
This call comes against a backdrop of challenges that have marred the ongoing mobile voter registration exercise where hundreds of people have been turned away for various reasons, including lack of proper identification and proper proof of residence.
In addition, long queues have been observed at most registration centres and this has been attributed to lack of adequate human and financial resources. This therefore buttresses the need for ZEC to accredit forthwith civic society organisations who are by law prohibited to conduct voter education unless authorised by the commission. We also call upon ZEC to consider extension of the mobile voter registration exercise.
Since the enactment of Electoral Amendment Act (2012), Zesn has observed many organisations conducting civic education and not voter education, which is more specific to elections.
The Building Resources in Democracy, Governance and Elections (Bridge) handbook defines voter education, also known as electoral education, as programmes aimed at people of the voting age and over and addresses voters’ motivation and preparedness to participate fully in elections.
The manual further explains that voter education is basically concerned with giving the types of electoral systems and electoral process and concepts such as basic human rights and voting rights, the role, responsibilities and rights of voters, the relationship between elections and democracy, conditions necessary for democratic elections, secrecy of the ballot, why each vote is important and its impact on public accountability and how votes translate into seats.
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Civic education includes both school and community-based education and deals with all aspects of human rights, active citizenship, systems of governance and elections. Voter information or awareness (more accurately referred to as voter awareness or information programs), happens just before an electoral event — usually they are one-off events and dwell on how to, where to and when to vote.
They aim to provide basic information enabling qualified citizens to vote, including the date, time, and place of voting; the type of election; identification necessary to establish eligibility; registration requirements and mechanisms for voting.
In Zimbabwe, the Electoral Amendment Act 2012 defines voter education as, “any course or programme of instruction on electoral law and procedure aimed at voters generally and not offered as part of a course in a law or civic or any other subjects for students at an educational institution”.
The continued arrest and criminalisation of civic society organisations for allegedly conducting voter education without seeking permission from ZEC is worrying and testimony to the need for ZEC to accredit CSOs.
Given the vagueness in the definition provided in the Electoral Act, we therefore call upon the ZEC and other policymakers to clarify the distinction between voter information, voter education and civic education. Certainly, each falls along a continuum of educational activities in support of elections and democracy and is mutually reinforcing. We urge the reviewing of the Act to mandate CSOs and any interested players and talk about voter education and civic education while ZEC focuses on providing voter information.
It is therefore imperative that ZEC seriously considers accreditation of civic society organisations in order to ensure that the voter education is comprehensive.
Zesn also makes reference to the constitutional referendum which had a total of 56 627 votes being rejected given that the ballot paper was very simple with either “Yes or No”; this again points to the need to scale up early voter education programmes. Furthermore, Zesn believes that a comprehensive voter education exercise will also enable the electorate to make informed decisions and may reduce voter apathy, thus we consider it as one of the fundamental conditions for the conduct of credible elections.
We reiterate our calls for early accreditation of observers to enable them to observe all the electoral processes including voter registration. In addition, we continue to call for the adequate resourcing of ZEC to enable them to effectively carry out their mandate.
