Afrocomplete Online News
8 June 2013
Official Statement from David Coltart, the Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture in Zimbabwe
Biography
David Coltart, MDC Senator, has been a human rights lawyer in Zimbabwe since his return to the country in 1983. He was first elected to represent the Bulawayo South House of Assembly constituency in June 2000, and was re-elected in March 2005. In March 2008 he was elected as a Senator to represent the Khumalo Senatorial constituency in Bulawayo. Senator Coltart was sworn in as Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture in February 2009.
Monday the 3rd June has come and gone without the intensive minimum 30 day voter registration and inspection period mandated by section 6(3) of the 6th Schedule of the Constitution starting. In fact I am reliably informed that the exercise will not start tomorrow as there are major logistical problems still to be overcome. There certainly has been no advertisement regarding where the voting registration centres will be located yet and so it is unlikely that the exercise will even get underway on Wednesday.
In any event one of the first logistical problems I warned of on Saturday is about to arise. If one works back from the date set for the election by the Constitutional Court, the 31st July, the problem will become apparent. Section 38(1)!a)(ii) of the current Electoral Act states that there must be a minimum period of 28 days from the nomination court date until the election. Which means that the nomination court must sit at the latest by the 3rd July for the 28 day period to be squeezed in before the 31st July.
On nomination day there has to be a voters roll because those seeking to be nominated have to be on the voters roll. Likewise in terms of section 46(1)(a) of the current Electoral Act anyone seeking nomination to Parliament must secure the signatures of at least 10 people whose names are on the voters roll. So in other words by the 3rd July, the latest possible date for the nomination court in terms of the timetable set by the Constitutional Court, there must be a voters roll containing the names of all those who have sought registration as voters. Without that voters roll no-one can be nominated.
We then need to go back where we started – namely section 6(3) of the 6th Schedule – that mandates a minimum period of 30 days of registration AND INSPECTION. What is the purpose of inspection? Obviously to check that one’s name is on the voters roll and the names of those who one wants to support one’s nomination are on the voters roll. In other words a final voters roll for the purposes of nomination cannot be produced until at the very least the 30 day period has been completed. As of midnight tonight it will be impossible to have this mandatory 30 period end prior to the last date for the nomination court to sit namely the 3rd July.
Accordingly with effect from midnight tonight the date of the 31st July set for the election, under any minimalistic or narrow interpretation of the electoral process (ie even ignoring all the other electoral challenges such as producing a voters roll in such a short space of time and the funding of the entire exercise), becomes legally and constitutionally impossible.
It goes without saying that every day now that the voter registration exercise does not commence leads to greater and greater absurdities and breaches of these fundamental provisions. Those who are promoting this state of affairs, are at risk of making themselves the laughing stock of SADC and indeed the world if this absurd situation is allowed to continue.