Women Not Turning Out For Voter Registration

Manyinga Town Council Secretary Ketty Mukonde has complained that women in her district are failing to register to vote during the ongoing voter registration exercise.

Ms Mukonde observed that Manyinga was one of the best districts in terms of voter registration, with officials able to register up to 100 voters per day. However, despite this, very few women were turning up to be registered. 

Ms Mukonde raised the issue during a phone call with North-Western Province Permanent Secrtary Willies Mangimela, adding that women actually formed a larger part of the district’s electorate than men. 

“Women are the majority in terms of our population and they are the ones who vote in numbers so let us encourage them to register,” she said.

Nevertheless Ms Mukonde was able to register some successes, noting that over 3,000 eligible voters had been registered in the district by Friday. 

This is in stark contrast to the rest of the country, where voter registration has been beset with delays, staffing shortages and technological faults. 

On Friday the ECZ announced that it would be keeping some registration offices in Lusaka open until 22:00 in order to deal with the backlog.