The Sunday News
Robin Muchetu, Senior Reporter
THE Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) will recruit about 130 000 polling officers for this year’s harmonised elections slated for 30 July, an official has said.
That will be about 22 percent increase from 106 000 polling officers that were recruited during the 2013 harmonised elections. In an interview on Friday, Zec acting chief elections officer Mr Utoile Silaigwana said the organisation was already making ground work on the process of recruiting officers.
“We need roughly 130 000 polling officers for this exercise. This is because there are several polling stations so we need officers present at ward level, command centres, districts and provinces thus the number is estimated at that,” he said.
Mr Silaigwana, however, said the recruitment exercise has not yet begun.
“We have not recruited any polling officers as yet but we are doing ground work at the moment and we will soon recruit and train them,” he said.
He said on average each polling station would be manned by 10 polling officers.
“We need on average 10 polling officers for each polling station in the country. But this is not cast in stone as some polling stations are remote and may have very few registered voters so there will be no need to deploy all 10. Instead they will be channelled to other stations where there is a need,” said Mr Silaigwana.
Asked on who qualifies to be a polling officer, he said they work in accordance with the Electoral Act which stipulates that officers are drawn from the civil service.
“According to the Electoral Act, recruitment of polling officers is done form State institutions, local authorities and the Health Services Board. We write to them and inform them of the qualifications that we need for one to qualify to be a polling officer. That is how we select polling officers.”
Some school headmasters have already reportedly recommended teachers whose names would be considered as polling officers. Most schools in the country will be used as polling stations.
