Presidential election results to be announced: ZEC
THE Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) will tomorrow invite the four presidential candidates who participated in last month’s harmonised elections to a verification and collation exercise, leading to the announcement of the results of the presidential election, it was announced.
Addressing a Press conference in Harare on Friday, ZEC chairman George Chiweshe who was appoint by President Mugabe said observers would be allowed to join the candidates, who could be represented by their agents.
Chiweshe would not be drawn to reveal exactly when the announcement would be made, instead sought to justify the results delay in may ways. He, however, said that the verification exercise would begin tomorrow.
"The process of feeding the recounted statistics into our systems has already begun. We trust that by Monday April 28, this process will have been concluded," he said.
"Immediately thereafter the returning officer (chief elections officer) will invite the four presidential candidates or their agents to a verification and collation exercise leading to the announcement of the results of the presidential election."
Chiweshe said the chief elections officer and the candidates had agreed that each party would collate its own figures. The statistics would then be compared at the end of the verification exercise.
Similar figures would indicate that the final position was correct, but any discrepancies would be cross-checked. The ZEC chairman claimed that several factors had hampered the announcement of the election result.
These were mainly transport and communication challenges in some constituencies. For instance, he said, ZEC only received results from Matabeleland North on April 7 while those from parts of Matabeleland South were also delayed. This statement would severely be criticised by political analysts as a cover-up as Zimbabwe has a perfect road network which easily connect the capital Harare.
"Our officers in the affected constituencies were eventually airlifted by Air Force helicopters all the way to Harare via Bulawayo," said Chiweshe.
"Secondly, during the collation exercise, we discovered that the figures on the polling station returns (forms V11) had in a number of constituencies been either inflated or deflated at various collation centres, thereby feeding erroneous information to the command centre.
"Naturally, we set out to find out why this was so and to take corrective measures."
He said ZEC had to revisit every V11 that emanated from polling stations countrywide in order to evaluate the authenticity of the figures.
He indicated that this process took long as over 9 000 polling stations had been commissioned for the elections. This translated into checking 36 000 forms.
The third reason for the perceived delay were applications that Zanu-PF and the MDC led by Tsvangirai made for the recounting of votes in 23 House of Assembly constituencies.
Chiweshe said the commission had to wait for the conclusion of the exercise. By late yesterday afternoon, he said, recounting had been concluded in 18 of the constituencies while the process was nearly complete in the remaining areas.
The MDC had also "lodged a number of applications" with the Electoral Court and the High Court. He said among these was an order which sought to compel ZEC to release the presidential election result in four hours.
Another sought to bar the commission from conducting the recounting exercise. The two applications were, however, dismissed.
"Collectively, these two matters were heard in a period spanning more than two weeks. During that period, the commission, assisted by the police, continued with the verification exercise across the country," said Chiweshe.
"We did not stop working. However, we were to a large extent during that period unable to inform the electorate as to what progress we were making as doing so would have entailed discussion of issues still pending before the courts.
"Regrettably, suggestions have been made both locally and abroad that what we have been doing all along is doctor the figures with a view to rigging the results of the election.
"Nothing could be further from the truth. We wish to reiterate that the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission is an independent, impartial and transparent election management body. Its processes are prescribed in the electoral law."
He added that the said processes ensured fairness and accountability, as stakeholders were involved at every stage of the electoral dispensation. Edited by Admore Tshuma.