1. It’s incredibly myopic to characterise @ZECzim’s poor voter registration record as a failure of the opposition & civic society when it’s a clear sign of systemic institutional failure. Just look at @ZACConline & its similarly poor record in fighting corruption.
2. So within days you have 2 critical national institutions reporting extremely poor performance of their constitutional mandates. This is a sign of chronic institutional weaknesses. You would think people would place responsibility on the institutions & their leadership.
3. But not in Zimbabwe. It’s yet another chance for naysayers to hammer the opposition as if it controls the pace of voter registration. The principal authors of ZEC’s failure Chigumba & all are given a free pass. In a normal country they would be resigning for failure of duty.
4. You even get a senior government official mocking efforts of those who have tried to raise the call for registration. It escapes his mind that the pathetically low registration figures are an indictment against a state institution which is failing to deliver its mandate. 
5. It shows that slow pace of voter registration and deliberate bottlenecks are a weapon to frustrate voters & the opposition. Of course, the opposition & civic society need to up their game next year & to document any impediments they face in trying to get people to register.
5. The single biggest agenda item of any civic organisation or political party next year must be to promote and actually get the unregistered to register, especially the young first time voters. It’s the most urgent question. Without registration the voters’ pool remains shallow.
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