Zimbabwean opposition protests against identity card requirement for voter registration

HARARE, Aug. 31– One of the two opposition parties in Zimbabwean
Parliament, the MDC, has raised the red flag over an announcement by
Registrar-General Tobaiwa Mudede that people who do not have plastic
national identity cards will not be able to register as voters for the 2018
elections.

Mudede on Tuesday announced that the machine readable plastic identity
cards must be used for the bio-metric voter registration (BVR), which is
due to begin in October. Many people still possess metal national identity
cards which they obtained prior to the introduction of plastic cards in
2010. Mudede said his office would roll out a three-month mobile
registration program for national identity cards and birth and death
certificates starting Sept. 4. MDC’s director of planning, strategy and
implementation Ellen Shiriyedenga said in a statement Wednesday that
Mudede’s move was illegal and meant to prop up President Robert Mugabe’s
Zanu-PF party by denying some people the chance to vote after failing to
acquired the new identity cards.

Shiriyedenga accused Mudede of trying to usurp the responsibility of the
Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC). Her party, which is led by Welshman
Ncube, is the smaller of the two MDCs in Parliament in terms of
representation. Shiriyedenga also questioned whether it was feasible for
the registrar-general to issue at least 3 million new identity cards in
time to allow BVR to take place ahead of the elections.”The irony is that,
the main national registry offices including Makombe and Market Square (in
Harare) currently do not issue more than 70 identity cards a day. It will
therefore require serious prophetic powers of extensive multiplication to
issue identity cards to all affected people,” she said. – XINHUA