A COALITION of people with disabilities is contemplating lobbying for a quota system to broaden its representation in the national elections.
This comes on the back of low participation of people with disabilities in the August elections with their representation coming through the seats in the Senate.
Political antagonists, Zanu PF and Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) did not field any candidate with a disability despite assurances from the players.
Disability Reform Coalition chairperson Masimba Kuchera said the quota system in political parties will address the under-representation of people with disabilities.
“We have a lot of promises from political parties since 2018. Some of them are partly fulfilled and some of them are unfulfilled. Sometimes it does not always happen immediately. So engagement with political parties must continue on several grounds.
“The fielding of candidates with disabilities is one. We are even looking at the quota system. What went wrong was that we tried to engage political parties when it was too late. Now is the time to engage political parties, talk to them, or perhaps educate them on disabilities,” said Kuchera.
Disability Reform Coalition recently held a post-election analysis in Harare recently.
People with disabilities bemoaned chaos that gripped the plebiscite which discriminated against them and violated their rights to vote.
Foreign observer missions also lambasted the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) in their reports that the voting system worked to the disadvantage of disabled people.
“They are recurring challenges. We are aware that we have persons with disability bill coming through and perhaps the loopholes can be closed. So there are a number of avenues to apply pressure to the electoral commission,” added Kuchera.
Source New Zimbabwe
