Photo: IRIN

Election day in Mbare, Harare. (file photo)

Johannesburg — President Jacob Zuma called on Zimbabwe on Monday to stage peaceful elections this week.

"... I think you will agree with me that in the last elections, by this time there were problems in Zimbabwe, with violence etc, and everybody was convinced the elections were on a very slippery kind of slope, but I can say today there has been a very, very, very good atmosphere," he said.

South Africa had been chosen by the SA Development Community to facilitate talks to help Zimbabweans towards free and fair elections.

Zimbabwe had produced a new Constitution and this had led to elections set down for Wednesday.

Parties had not been able to campaign everywhere before the last election, Zuma said. "This time I think they have."

There was the "usual campaign politics", where things were said about the opposition, but this should not be seen as unusual.

Zuma believed that this time around there had not been any campaign violence.

He believed Zimbabweans were proving that they had a learned a lesson from the last elections.

They wanted peaceful elections this time "so that the winner will win without any measures that they can take to disadvantage others".

He said Zimbabwe had done the best it could in the short time it had had to prepare.

"So we would say to the Zimbabweans, please have your elections in peace so that they can be declared free and fair, so that the Zimbabweans can then face the task of reconstructing Zimbabwe and indeed proving that democracy can come back to Zimbabwe.

"So we wish them well. We wish all the parties well in their campaign," he said.

He was speaking during a media briefing with South African-born Hollywood actress Charlize Theron about her work as a UNAIDS messenger for peace. UNAIDS is the joint UN programme on HIV/Aids.

When the off-topic question was snuck in by a reporter, Theron joked that the reporter was not going to let Zuma off the hook.

"You're going to have to answer something," joked Theron.