ZAMBIA: JCTR Registers Concern Over Slow Voter Registration Pace
By Mwenya Mukuka
As Zambia prepares to hold its general election in August 2021, the Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection (JCTR) has registered appreciation towards the ongoing voter registration exercise being conducted by the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) across the country.
However, the JCTR is concerned over the slow pace at which the exercise is being conducted if the nine million voters target is to be achieved.
JCTR has established that the slow pace being experienced in most parts of the country is due to, among other issues, frequent breakdowns of registration kits, manpower shortage as most registration centres are manned by only one person, and slowness of the connectivity of the kits to the internet especially in rural areas.
Long queues characterize the registration process in many registration centres.
People are frustrated by the slow process due to shortage of manpower while in some registration centres the delays are caused because the machines take long to respond to the fingerprint process.
“People with fingers that are hard or cracked as a result of the jobs they do are also having difficulties to have their fingerprints taken and this sometimes takes over three hours to verify. Another complaint is that the material being used for the new voters’ card is too light compared to previous ones,” read a statement issued by JCTR.
And the JCTR has noted that some polling districts are too vast and densely populated hence it is not possible to register everyone within the allocated period.
“We feel these challenges can easily be dealt with, otherwise many people will not be able to register due to the long queues and the time limitation. As it is, about 19 days are remaining before the exercise comes to an end. In Southern Province, for example, a number of people would rather go and queue up for farming inputs under the Farm Input Support Programme (FISP) than stand in a long queue for voter registration all day and end up going home without the voters’ card,” the statement said.
The JCTR has since said that the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) target of capturing nine million registered voters may not be achievable under these circumstances unless the electoral body ensure that adequate manpower is deployed to all registration centres and that it [ECZ] mobilises more registration centres. ECZ should also consider extending the voter registration period by not less than two weeks to cover up for the lost time cause as a result of breakdowns of the testing kits at registration centres.
