Voters queue to cast ballots in Zimbabwe's capital Harare (file photo). (Photo Courtesy Ephraim Nsingo/IPS)

A leading South African research and policy organisation has said that a free election in Zimbabwe cannot be held on the basis of the current voters roll, saying it must be urgently revised.

The South African Institute of Race Relations said in a new report, "Preventing Electoral Fraud in Zimbabwe," that Robert Mugabe and his ZANU PF party have repeatedly ignored the terms of the Global Political Agreement (GPA), which formed the basis for the unity government. The GPA, among other key issues, calls for a new constitution approved by a referendum before any general election can take place.

"Instead, Mugabe is pushing for quick elections later this year, based on a voters' roll so defective as to boggle belief," said the report's author, R.W. Johnson.

Speaking to SW Radio Africa on Thursday, Johnson explained how the roll contains more than 40,000 voters aged over 100, "which is four times more than the number of centenarians in the whole of Britain." He also explained how at least 16,000 of these voters all mysteriously share the same birthday of 1st January 1901, while 133,000 voters are between the ages of 90 and 100.

"The voters roll also lists about 230 new voters under the voting age of eighteen, including some children who are only one or two years old," Johnson explained.

He added that the biggest problem is that the current roll is based on the 2008 voters roll, which contains about 2.5 million names too many. He said this "phantom vote" is more than enough to decide the outcome of any election.

"Instead of removing these fictitious entries, the Registrar-General, Mr

Tobaiwa Mudede, an outspoken ZANU PF supporter, has added more than 360,500 new voters to the current roll. Yet many are far too old or too young to merit inclusion," Johnson said.

He warned that this kind of "ballot stuffing" has been seen in Zimbabwe in the past, and added that a new voters roll is absolutely critical, calling the current roll a "tool for fraud." He also added that South Africa's President Jacob Zuma, as the mediator in the political crisis, must use this information and insist a new voters roll is put in place.

"I know for a fact that a copy has been put in Zuma's hands and into his chief mediator's hands (Lindiwe Zulu), so they are well aware of the problem," Johnson said.

But he added; "As we know, if Mugabe wants to rig elections as he has done before, a voters roll is not going to stop him. We've already seen militia and other armed groups being deployed in the rural areas, and this is a serious sign of what ZANU PF has planned for elections."