The elections that were held on the 23rd of August 2023 were very peaceful. There were 11 candidates who were contesting for the presidential office including E. Mnangagwa, Lovemore Madhuku, Nelson Chamisa, and Elisabeth Valerio among others. Of the eleven candidates who were running for office, 10 were males and Elisabeth Valerio was the only woman. There were two candidates who were contesting to become members of Parliament in my ward: one man, Tendai Patrick Zindoga from ZANU-PF, and one woman, Joana Mamombe, a female candidate from the CCC. Moreso there were 3 candidates running for office as councillors for Ward 41:two women and one man.
The electoral process took place at Cornelius Hope Academy Secondary School which I also witnessed and took part in. People started voting some minutes after 7 a.m. until 7 p.m. Three classrooms were used as voting rooms and there were police officers, election agents, and electoral officers who facilitated the voting process, assisted voters and ensured proper
voting. These election agents were from both main political parties in Zimbabwe that is CCC and ZANU-PF. People came out in their numbers from youths to the elderly. All the older citizens, pregnant women nursing mothers and those with serious conditions were assisted to vote first.
However, some voters were hindered from casting their vote because their names went missing, and for others, they found their names at a different polling station which was not close to the one they were supposed to vote at. This could have been caused by the confusion that occurred 3 days before the voting date whereby people were all informed that they would be voting at the Apostolic Faith Church known as Open Space A, which was also confirmed by the voting information provided on our phones; but, later on during the day on Tuesday, a short notice came informing people that the voting area had been changed to a school that is almost 2 kilometres away from the previous site.
So on the actual election day, most people were not aware of the changes and went to the wrong site first which might have caused some citizens to return home without voting as there was no one to inform them of the changes or the new voting area. All in all, I managed to place my vote and freely exercised my constitutional right.