CCMG Calls For Clarity On Voter Registration, NRC Issuance

The Christian Churches Monitoring Group (CCMG) has called on Government to provide clarity regarding its plans for issuing new National Registration Cards (NRCs) ahead of the 2021 elections.

CCMG has made the call following an announcement by the ECZ that it intends to undertake a mobile voter registration exercise in May in order to capture the many thousands of potential voters who are newly eligible.

CCMG has requested details regarding any NRC programmes in order to ensure that citizens ae given adequate opportunity to register to vote and avoid disenfranchisement. Without a valid NRC citizens will be unable to secure a Voters card.

In 2015 national mobile NRC issuance took place for several months before the mobile voter registration exercise. Speaking on the current lack of clarity concerning NRC issuance CCMG Steering Committee Spokesperson Fr Chikoya stated, “CCMG is very concerned about the lack of any publicly available information related to the Ministry of Home Affairs’ schedule for the nationwide mobile NRC issuance exercise. We are now just more than two months away from when ECZ says it will begin mobile voter registration.”

Fr Chikoya further noted that failure to provide this information could give rise to the perception that the process is unfair and damage public confidence in future elections.

The ECZ has previously proposed to produce a new Voters Register targeting nine million voters ahead of the 2021 General Election. However, due to limited time and resources an update to the existing register is now being considered.