A dispute has erupted over the design of Zimbabwe’s presidential election ballot paper with opposition parties and independent observers accusing the electoral commission of trying to rig the poll for President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) printed the ballot papers with the presidential candidates listed in alphabetical order in two columns.
President Mnangagwa’s name, which would be towards the middle of a single column in terms of the Electoral Act, heads the second column in the ZEC design.
ZEC justified the design saying the high number of presidential candidates made it expensive to print a single column ballot paper, a claim that has been rejected by both the opposition and legal experts.
A record 23 candidates and close to 300 independents are contesting the presidential election, which will coincide with parliamentary and local government polls.
At the same time the Zimbabwean authorities have defended a new electoral roll after allegations that thousands of fake names, duplicates and dead people are registered to cast ballots in a July 30 vote.
The country’s roll has long been a contentious feature of elections and is accused of being at the core of vote rigging under Robert Mugabe, the long-time president who was ousted last year.
Zimbabwe’s general election will be the first since the fall of Mugabe, who had ruled since independence from Britain in 1980, but the opposition is threating to disrupt the poll if the design of the ballot paper is not changed.
