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Zimbabwe: March 29 Polls - Two More Observer Teams Arrive
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 Published by the government of Zimbabwe |
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The Herald (Harare)
24 March 2008
Posted to the web 24 March 2008
Harare
Two teams of observers from the Pan African Parliament and the Sadc Electoral Commissions Forum have arrived to observe this Saturday's joint presidential, parliamentary and council elections.
PAP is a new body created by the African Union about three years ago while election bodies in the Sadc region constitute the ECF.
This is the second election PAP will be observing after the Kenyan elections.
Head of the PAP mission Mr Marwick Khumalo said they brought along 19 parliamentarians and 15 support staff from countries across the continent.
"We have come here to observe the elections in Zimbabwe and this is a team drawn from all parts of Africa, that include The Gambia, Chad, Burkina Faso, Libya, Ethiopia, Algeria, Mauritius, Ghana, Cameroon, Congo Brazzaville and Tanzania among other countries," said Mr Khumalo, who is an MP in the Swazi Parliament.
"The purpose of our mission here is to ensure that the elections meet the standards of the African Union Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance and the African Union Declaration on Elections, Democracy and Governance in Africa. That is the spirit within which we have come here.
"We have not come to prescribe to Zimbabwe how they should conduct their elections.
"We have no interest on the baby to be conceived, whether it is going to be a boy or girl, but to ensure whether the process leading to that is in place."
He said the team, which arrived on Saturday, has since started interfacing with stakeholders who include political parties, civic society and the media.
"It is a battalion of esteemed parliamentarians that have been deployed to observe the Zimbabwean elections. We are still trying to acclamatise ourselves and very soon we will be deploying our members to various parts of the country. Some of our members attended an MDC rally this afternoon addressed by its president," said Mr Khumalo, who is also president of the Southern African caucus of the PAP.
The PAP mission is expected to hold a media briefing today.
Head of the ECF Reverend Felix Mokobi said they were coming to Zimbabwe as impartial observers.
He said 21 observers from ECF would be coming to observe the elections.
Rev Mokobi commended Sadc for the role it played in assisting Zimbabwe.
"As (election) commissioners we will be as impartial as possible. We also want to commend Sadc for the role it has taken on Zimbabwe. There has been a lot of initiatives to assist the Zimbabwean people," said Rev Mokobi, who comes from Botswana.
"There have been perceptions about Zimbabwe, we don't want these perceptions to be viewed as realities."
In a related matter, the Sadc observer team has deployed a total of 130 observers across the country following the arrival of a second group between Wednesday and Friday last week.
A total of 25 are in the capital and these include the secretariat and head of the observer mission, Mr Jose Marcos Barrica, the Angolan Minister of Youth, Sport and Culture.
The first group of 70 Sadc observers arrived two weeks ago.
Sadc secretariat media officer Mr Charles Mubita said observers who arrived on Thursday had since been deployed to all parts of Zimbabwe and had already started their work.
"They were deployed yesterday (Saturday) to various parts of the country. This means we now have a total of 130 observers from Sadc who are in the field observing political activities like campaign rallies, meetings and other activities.
"We also have about 25 people who form the secretariat and the head of the mission who are here in Harare," said Mr Mubita.
He said they were expecting more observers before Saturday.
"We are making consultations with ambassadors of Sadc countries here in Zimbabwe, especially those who have not sent their representatives. So we still expect more observers from Sadc and they will be deployed as soon as they arrive," he said.
Mr Barrica will continue consultations with stakeholders.
He has so far met with both MDC factions, Zanu-PF, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions and ambassadors accredited to Zimbabwe from Africa and the European Union.
Yesterday, Mr Barrica received updates from his observers on the work covered to date.
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"We will resume our consultative work tomorrow with political parties, ZEC and other stakeholders. With ZEC we want to recap certain important issues and we want to have met all these stakeholders by Tuesday," he said.
Mr Barrica has since said the environment prevailing in the country was conducive for free and fair elections.
He told EU and other Western ambassadors - who are seeking to discredit the elections -- that they should not prejudge the polls.
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