The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission has printed 594 300 ballots for the forthcoming National Assembly and local authorities’ by-elections scheduled for March 26.
This was said by ZEC chief elections officer, Mr Utloile Silaigwana yesterday.
The ballots for the National Assembly were printed by Fidelity Printers and Refiners while those for local authorities were printed by Printflow
“A total of 870 550 National Assembly ballot paper and fifty 723 750 local authority ballot papers have been printed for the conduct of the by-elections,” Mr Silaigwana said.
He added that a contingency of 6,99 percent had been added to the ballots printed for the National Assembly by-elections while a 6,71 percent contingency had been added to the ballots printed for local authority by-elections.
A total of 813 659 people were registered to vote for National Assembly elections while 678 260 were registered for local authorities’ by-elections.
The ballot papers were printed in books of 50 each.
There are 28 vacant National Assembly seats and 122 for local authorities.
The bulk of vacancies are as a result of recall disputes within opposition ranks and some who died or redeployed.
At least 16 political parties will contest the by-elections.
Some of the parties will contest in few constituencies while Zanu PF, Citizen Coalition for Change and MDC-Alliance will contest in all or almost all the 28 constituencies.
Names of other political parties include All People’s Party, Democratic Opposition Party, Federation of African State, Free Zimbabwe Congress, Labour, Economists and African Democrats, MA’AT Zimbabwe, Movement for Democratic Change Alliance, New Patriotic Front, Patriotic Zimbabweans, Republican Party of Zimbabwe, United Democratic Alliance, United Zimbabwe Alliance, Zimbabwe African People’s Union and Zimbabwe Labour Party.-Herald
