Irregularities alleged in voter registration process

Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has instructed lawyers to investigate allegations that people were illegally registered for urban council elections later this month. MDC legal affairs secretary David Coltart told IRIN on Wednesday that the party had uncovered "evidence of padding of the voters' roll for urban council elections", due to take place on 30 and 31 August. This follows the reported comments of MDC secretary-general, Welshman Ncube, that the opposition was compiling a catalogue of ruling party supporters listed on the voters' roll after closure of registration for the local government polls at the end of June. Coltart said the MDC wanted "to audit some of these voters' rolls, we instructed a firm of lawyers this morning to bring a [court] application ... which would, at the very least, seek an order striking out the names of people who've been illegally recorded on the voters' roll for these particular wards". "I should think we may consider other claims such as seeking copies of the voters roll in a number of wards, where we have been refused permission thus far to even get a copy of the voters roll," Coltart added. The MDC is currently challenging the nomination process in the town of Chegutu. Coltart explained that "in Chegutu we had prepared all the nomination papers for our candidates, our intention was to contest all 11 wards in Chegutu". "But on the day we were prevented by [ruling party] ZANU-PF thugs from even getting into the nomination court, our candidates were severely beaten, one suffered severe injury and is in a critical condition. Suffice it to say that by the close of the nomination proceedings we had not managed to file a single nomination paper," he said. The ZANU-PF candidates were then elected "by default", "so we have brought an application to the High Court to set aside the nomination process and set a fresh nomination date". ZANU-PF spokesman Nathan Shamuyarira was not available to comment on the MDC allegations, his office told IRIN on Wednesday.