It’s becoming more and more clear that ECZ has no compelling reason nor legal mandate to do away with the current voters’ register.
They claim that they have been asked by political parties, civil society and other stakeholders to remove 6.7 million registered voters and start a new register.
But all the political parties have refused including PF and UPND. And a CSO has taken them to court over the matter.
So which stakeholders have demanded a new register?
They claim that they want to remove dead voters from the roll hence the re-registeration.
But the ministry of health via the hospitals has a record of all people who have died in this country since whenever the commission would want. So why not obtain this record from MOH and remove the dead voters directly than render all existing voters dead unless they re-register?
They claim that they want to enhance security features including asking for ten fingerprints from each potential voter.
This sounds a bit bizarre!! How big will this voter’s card be which will hold ten fingerprints? And what if a person only has one hand or Indeed one finger? If you want enhanced features why not just reprint the card with new features than rewrite the entire database?
Can the commission also answer the question of which law mandates them to deregister all existing voters at any given time and ask them to register afresh. Which law gives the commission these powers?
Please ba ECZ give us answers