By DELPHINE ZULU –
LUSAKA District has recorded 2,035 registered voters in the continued voter registration exercise being conducted at the Civic Centre as at January 15, 2016.
Out of the 2,035 who had registered, 1,154 are new registrations of which 570 are female and 584 are male, while 879 are updates and four are notifications of death.
Lusaka recorded 492,654 registered voters as at December 13, 2015, which reflected an increase of 29,251 voters recorded in the 2014 voters’ roll which stood at 363,403.
District electoral officer (DEO), Alex Mwansa said he was impressed with the turnout of citizens that had continued flocking to the civic centre to register as voters in the August 11, 2016 tri-partite elections.
This is contained in a statement issued by district voter education committee coordinator Brenda Katongola.
The DEO, who is also Lusaka town clerk, urged citizens who had not yet registered as voters to take advantage of the open window to register as voters if they were to participate in the decisive general elections which are due in seven months.
The continued registration of voters at civic centres will officially close on March 31, 2016.
He said there had been overwhelming response from people coming to the civic centre to register as voters since the extended registration period.
“I would like to encourage all citizens who are 18 years and above and youths who are currently 17 years old and will have attained 18 years of age by July 31, 2016 to also register as voters with a condition that they should possess green national registration cards,” Mr Mwansa said.
Mr Mwansa requested women to be proactive in the electoral process because statistics as at December 13, 2015 showed that only 85,296 females in Lusaka had registered compared to 117,823 males.
The DEO, however, was happy with the zeal by the youth who had registered as voters for the 2016 presidential, parliamentary and local government elections.