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5.6m register for Zim polls
07/12/2007 13:17 - (SA)
Harare - More than five million Zimbabweans have registered to vote in next year's presidential and parliamentary polls, says a top election official, rejecting opposition allegations that voting would be rigged.
George Chiweshe, chairperson of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), said on Thursday that 5.6 million people had registered. The country had a population of about 13 million people.
He emphasised at a press conference in Harare that people could still register.
In August, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change denounced the voter registration programme as a sham after only 80 000 people had registered, saying the system was aimed at boosting President Robert Mugabe's chances of victory.
The opposition said the ruling Zanu-PF regime was trying to rig the election "through a biased and opaque voter registration that sought to disenfranchise the young population and urban voters, where the opposition enjoys majority support".
However, Chiweshe dismissed the opposition complaints. He said: "They will always be complaints and compliments. Some are valid and some not so valid. Our electoral system is as good as any in the region. Some people make allegations without facts."
Zimbabwe was likely to go to the polls in March next year after 83-year-old Mugabe would seek a seventh term in office.
Mugabe vowed last week that the elections would be monitored only by "friendly and objective members of the international community".
The estimated three million exiled Zimbabweans would not be allowed to vote.
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Zimbabwe Special Report
