Nkayi Registry refuses to register, sets police on youths

Officials at the Nkayi registry office had to call police officers to disperse a group of determined youths who refused to leave their offices without being registered to vote.

After several failed attempts to register in the past few weeks, a group of close to fifty youths said after they had provided all that was necessary to get registered including having their village heads personally vouching for them, they were still turned away.

“First we were told that the office wants to deal with those applying for identity (IDs) and birth documents before they attend to us. Then they said our letters of proof of residence were forgeries. When we went to fetch the village heads that wrote the letters, they demanded that we bring letters stamped by the chief” said one frustrated young man.

After half an hour of waiting and the youths insisting that their letters were genuine enough to get them registered, the district registrar who identified himself as Mr Ngwenya appeared and addressed the youths saying he would not register them unless they told him which party they belonged to.

When the youths refused to divulge this information being adamant that they were citizens and had the right to register regardless of political affiliation, Mr Ngwenya called the police to disperse the youths.

The action has been condemned by rights and youth groups working in Matabeleland with the director of the National Youth Development Trust (NYDT) Mr Liberman Bhebhe calling the Nkayi registrar’s actions as “illegal” stating that his organisation is willing to approach the courts to compel Ngwenya and his subordinates to comply with the laws of the land.

“Even if these youths were from a said political party, they still deserve to be registered if their documents are in order. Zimbabwe uses an open roll system and this mandates the RG’s office to register voters at anytime that they present themselves and their documents at the RGs offices. Voter registration must be treated like any service every Zimbabwean is entitled to,” he said.

The refusal by various RG branches to register voters for useless reasons like staff shortage and it not being their core function, has led to wide calls within civic society to have the duty of registering voters moved out of the RGs office and put under the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC)’s mandates as the RG has proven to be incompetent in that regard.