Preliminary Reports From Election Observers Have Us Excited - Zec Acting Chief Elections Officer

Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) acting chief elections officer Utoile Silaigwana has said that the electoral commission is excited by the preliminary reports it has received from election observers. Silagwaina claimed that 90 percent of the reports commended Zec’s handling of the disputed July 30 harmonised elections while the other reports said Zec could improve on its publicity. In an interview with NewsDay Silaigwana said,

We have received preliminary reports. The full reports will be coming, but from the preliminary reports, I can tell you that we are very, very excited because the majority of them, I think about 90% of them, are commending us for a job well done. There are a few, of course, who said we need to improve in terms of our publicity.

Yes, we are aware there is no perfect election under the sun, but the initial reports that we got are impressive, but we must not sit on our laurels because of that. That’s why I am talking about Zec keeping on training our staff.

… in every election, you will find one or two things that need to be improved; be they legal or administrative and as I have said, once we get all the comprehensive and the full reports from the observers, we will take them into account. If the recommendations have legal implications, we will pass them to Parliament. Other recommendations, which may be administrative, we will take on board.

…We want to make sure that in the next election, those minor issues, the things we did not get right, are corrected… It terms of the technical aspect of management of elections, no regrets, but in terms of the polarisation which is political, which is outside Zec, yes, I have regrets because I think our society must move from polarising itself to depolarising itself.

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Read Full Interview Here

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• SADC, SADC Parliamentary Forum, AU, Comesa Endorse The Elections

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