Children on Mugabe's electoral roll

Published on Friday 21 January 2011 13:56

Four-year-olds will vote in Zimbabwe's elections later this year if president Robert Mugabe has his way.

Nearly one third of the country's 5.5 million registered voters are dead while others appear to be up to 120 years old - or young enough to be in playschool - researchers claimed yesterday.

The independent Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) said a fresh voter registration exercise should be undertaken before the election, the date for which has yet to be set.

Mr Mugabe had the names of at least 93 one-year-olds added to the electoral register in key rural constituencies ahead of violence-blighted elections in 2008, the research showed.

In fact, 5,600 names on the current electoral roll belong to children aged less than 18 two years ago. Few should be eligible to vote this year.

Mr Mugabe is under pressure from hardliners in his Zanu-PF party to defy South African president Jacob Zuma and hold elections mid-year, ending a shaky two-year power-sharing deal with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Mr Zuma has so far failed to get Mr Mugabe to agree with his coalition partner Morgan Tsvangirai on a road-map to free and fair elections.

Children on Zimbabwe's voters' roll are said to include three-year-old Mildah Nehuhambi from eastern Buhera, who was born on 25 February, 2007.

Voter Argentina Vurahore, born 17 January 2007, in central Gokwe turned four this week.

"We know very well that voter registration is done manually," a researcher told the Zimbabwe Independent newspaper. "I assume the one-year-olds went with their IDs to register."

The findings coincide with revelations that Mr Mugabe, in power since 1980, intends to subject primary pupils to "patriotic" training starting next month.

Yesterday's research - conducted in two separate audits - shows more than 144,000 people on the roll would have been aged 90 and above in 2008. That's if they were still alive.

Health authorities say Zimbabwe's average life expectancy is less than 46 but dozens of registered voters were apparently born in the 19th century.

"No serious efforts have been taken to update and cleanse the national voters' roll of persons that should not be on the roll," ZESN said.

Registrar-general Tobaiwa Mudede, a Mugabe ally who saw thousands of white voters excised from the roll after 2000, said his office was "updating" the register and had so far found just 32,000 deceased.

Mr Mugabe's own longevity has been under the spotlight this week after he apparently prolonged his annual holiday. The private Newsday paper said he had been to Malaysia for a "minor operation" on his prostate and would return home this week. Zanu-PF denied the story.