THE Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) has said that it is targeting to register 2.5 million new voters before the 2011 general elections.
ECZ deputy director for information technology, Brown Kasaro said yesterday during a media luncheon that the commission would conduct an initial 90-day continuous voter registration exercise through periodic mobile registration campaigns in all the 150 constituencies.
The continuous voter registration process will begin next month.
Mr Kasaro said the 2.5-million target arises from projections from the Central Statistical Office that there are 6.4 million Zambians aged 18 years and above and are
eligible to register as voters.
The 6.4 million projection includes people who are already registered.
Mr Kasaro said ECZ would deploy registration officers in all the constituencies at the same time.
“They will spend an equal number of days per registration centre in each respective constituency,” he said
The campaigns would be supplemented by an extended stay of registration officers at the district centres in order to capture eligible voters who would otherwise not be able to register during the mobile campaigns in the constituencies.
He said the commission would deploy 940 registration officers, translating in an average of six officers per constituency.
The Government has provided K70 billion in the 2010 national Budget for the registration of voters.
[Times of Zambia]
The exercise is welcome but, between now and election peeriod is a long stretch. This gives room for the voter’s register to be manipulated taking into account that no one will bother to eliminate or pdate the register to remove terminally ill or deceased pipo. A more profficient approach would be to conduct registration three months prior to elections. This ensures minimum irregularities as compared to a 12 months plus period which makes the scheme volunerable to riggers and hackers and all other ill vices with intent to manipulate the register.The way is see it……………….
Just ask yourselves, ladies and gentlemen. Where will these 2.5 million or so to be voters come from? This is were the rigging starts. Just open your eyes and you will know what I am talking about.
120,000 new NRCs to RB’s cadres in Eastern Province. Just imagine…