MDC to deploy polling agents

Published: 20 June 2018

The MDC plans to field agents in all polling stations during next month's election, the party's organising secretary Amos Chibaya said.

Speaking to the Daily News yesterday, Chibaya said the move was targeted at ensuring that the ruling Zanu-PF will not "rig" the elections.

"Like any other year, we are going to field polling agents in every polling station. We want to stop Zanu-PF from rigging this election. Our agents are going to alert us on every move," he said.

On Monday, Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) said it will allow political parties to have "roving" election agents who will move from one polling station to another, observing the conduct of the elections.

In previous elections, election agents were only allowed to observe one polling station.

"To be eligible to appoint roving agents a political party must have supplied the stated lists of office bearers in the period starting from the fourth day after the publication of the proclamation and ending two days before the sitting of the nomination courts, that is, the period from June 3 -12, 2018," Zec said.

MDC has failed to dislodge Zanu-PF in four elections, although none of them were free or fair, according to the MDC and Western observers.

Former president Robert Mugabe denies MDC allegations that his Zanu-PF has cheated the MDC of victory in four major elections since 2000.

The late MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai was urged not to contest in the 2013 elections because many of the electoral reforms he had asked for had not been implemented, but he went on to participate and controversially lost to Mugabe.

The MDC has said it will not repeat that mistake. It remains the biggest challenge to Zanu-PF's continued hold on power.
- dailynews

Tags: MDC,