Dead voters on poll lists cast doubts on Zimbabwean elections

Jan 21, 2011, 16:11 GMT

Harare As Zimbabweans anxiously prepare for elections anticipated later this year, fresh doubt about the balloting process has been raised by the unearthing of thousands of dead people on voting rolls, according to an independent survey.

More than a quarter of people registered to vote are dead, the Zimbabwe Electoral Support Network said in a report issued Friday. Plus, in a society where the average life expectancy is only 44.7, a sample of 5 per cent of the voters' roll - an estimated 5.8 million - found 2,300 people listed as more than 100 years old.

While the Guinness Book of Records asserts that the world's oldest person is 114 years, ZESN's sample of Zimbabwe's voters roll uncovered nine people between 111 and 120 years. Such an anomaly is unlikely, said ZESA.

Parliamentarian Tongai Matutu was cited by the report saying that, in his own southern constituency, he had discovered 503 dead voters on the list, all of whom were registered with the birth date of January 1, 1901.

Five of the six elections since 2000 under President Robert Mugabe have been denounced internationally as violent and fraudulent. Inflating voter rolls with ghost voters is one standard way of rigging votes, according to independent observers.

Zimbabwe has been ruled by a coalition government since February 2009, made up of Mugabe's ZANU (PF) party and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's liberal Movement for Democratic Change.

Mugabe, who turns 87 next month, has insisted that elections be held by August this year.

A national opinion poll earlier this month said that seven out of 10 Zimbabweans feared the coming poll would bring violence again and that they were afraid of expressing themselves publicly. That sentiment was sparked partially by the last election, in June 2008, in which 200 of Tsvangirai's supporters were murdered by Mugabe's militants, and thousands tortured and maimed.

The ZESN report said its researchers encountered suspicion and intimidation when trying to interview people. One group was chased away from a town by Mugabe supporters. Another had his car burnt.

The survey estimated that the electorate had grown by 360,000 to about 5.8 million since 2008.

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