Zimbabwean Parliamentary Election, 2005 - Timetable and Voters Roll

Timetable and Voters Roll

The election date was set by President Robert Mugabe on February 1. March 31 was a public holiday to enable easier voter participation. The parliament was dissolved on March 30, one day before the elections. The voters' roll was closed on February 4. Nomination courts sat on February 18 to receive names of those intending to contest in the polls (results).

The voters roll is the cornerstone of "one person – one vote." Attempts to verify this have been extremely difficult to carry out because of obstruction and non-cooperation from the Zimbabwe Registrar General.

The Registrar General refused to release the roll in electronic form, supported by judgments from the Supreme Court, necessitating any analysis to work from a paper copy. Electoral Law is very specific in that the roll must be readily and freely available to any person, however it took two years to obtain such a copy.

In February, South African president Thabo Mbeki conceded that Zimbabwe's voters roll was defective and needed to be looked at.

Only a single MDC constituency managed to complete the audit ahead of the deadline for objections to the voters' roll - a month before the poll.

In that constituency, 64 percent of people in one densely populated block in Harare North, are not known at the addresses given on the voters' roll.

Tens of thousands of former workers on white-owned farms were deprived of their votes in the March election. The workers were expelled from their homes on farms along with their employers. Thus they did not have the necessary wad of official documents required to register as voters. In addition, many could not afford to travel to their original farm constituencies to verify their details on voters' rolls. Recently-enacted laws demand that potential voters provide proof of residence before they can register. Rural Zimbabweans either produce letters from their headman or chief or from their farm employer as proof of residence.