Tobaiwa Mude-de said Zimbabwe’s electoral register had “nominal percentage error margins” and said his office was happy to allow critics to inspect the roll.
Critics have accused President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party of manipulating the list for political advantage and say it includes children and people who have long since died.
A report published earlier this month by the South Africa-based Institute of Security Studies (ISS) said there 41 119 centenarians registered to vote in the country.
There were officially four times as many centenarians in Zimbabwe as in Britain, the report, titled Preventing Electoral Fraud in Zimbabwe said, despite the European nation enjoying a much higher life expectancy than its former colony.
Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, whose Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) is in a power sharing government with Zanu-PF, has insisted on a fresh voters’ roll before the next elections.
“I am not sure why he would want to defend such a shameful document,” said MDC spokesperson Douglas Mwonzora. “No one serious person will spend a second defending it. How can you allow ghosts to be on a voters’ roll?”
“As a party, we have no issues with the voters roll,” Zanu-PF spokesperson Rugare Gumbo said. “We can win an election with it or after it has been re-done.”