The Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) refutes allegations levelled against it by the Zimbabwe African National Union–Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) Finance Department on training of polling agents that will participate in the upcoming 23 August 2023 elections.

It is alleged in the ZANU-PF Finance Department Press Statement that was issued and signed by the Treasurer General Patrick Chinamasa yesterday (20 June 2023) that….“It has come to the notice of the ZANU-PF Department of Finance that the UK, France, Australia, USAID, Sweden, Japan, the US Embassy in Harare, the US based National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the EU, USA and the UK funded Zimbabwe Election Support network (ZESN) and Election Resource Centre (ERC) have announced that they are putting together a donation of US$10m for the training of 12,500 election agents for each of the political parties participating in the forthcoming harmonised elections.

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ZESN has implored the government to implement electoral reforms in line with the dictates of the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance (ACDEG) which it ratified in 2022. The call was made against the backdrop of the 60 anniversary of Africa Day observed on 25 May which ran under the theme “Acceleration of African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) implementation.”

In recognition of the importance of democracy, African governments adopted the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance (ACDEG). Article 2 (3) of the ACDEG accentuates the significance of ‘regular free and fair elections to institutionalize legitimate authority of representative government as well as democratic change of governments’. ACDEG also seeks to ‘promote best practices in the management of elections for purposes of political stability and good governance’ and to ensure Read More

The Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) welcomes the Proclamation of the 2023 harmonised elections. Under Statutory Instrument 85 of 2023 President Emmerson Mnangangwa, fixed 23 August 2023 as polling day and June 21 as the date on which Nomination Courts would sit countrywide to accept applications by political parties and their candidates to take part in the polls.

The Network commends government for implementing some electoral reforms which include: the ratification of the African Charter on Democracy, Governance and Elections (ACDEG); the amendment of the Census and Statistics Act to push forward the population census to pave way for the delimitation of electoral boundaries, the amendment of the Constitution which saw the introduction of the Youth Quota in the National Assembly and the extension of the Women’s Quota by a further ten years in the National Assembly.Read More