Civic group petition SADC

 The petition, signed by 18 civic groups in Zimbabwe
 bemoaned the unfair aspects of the elections as well
 as the dithering that the Zimbabwe Electoral
 Commission (ZEC) has been doing in releasing of
 results.
 “We as Civil Society are concerned by the failure to
 announce the results timeously. This creates a founded
 suspicion in the minds of Zimbabweans that the
 authorities are trying to manipulate the results in
 order to get their preferred party candidates to win.
 This is especially so given that the opposition has
 already been expressing public concern at what they
 saw as measures that were being taken to manipulate
 the vote and rig the elections,” the petition stated.
 “We are aware that the Zimbabwean government has
 already deployed police, army and intelligence units
into the major cities in anticipation of potential trouble.       Of significant concern are the unconfirmed
 rumours that allegedly from the security branches of
 government that the incumbent is preparing to declare
 a state of emergency after announcing inaccurate
 results. This is consistent with the threats by the
 security chiefs before the elections that they are not
 prepared to accept the election results if President
 Mugabe and ZANU PF lose the elections,” it said.
 The civil society groups asked the SADC leaders to;
 “Exert the necessary diplomatic pressure to force
 President Mugabe to ensure that the elections are as
 free and fair as possible. Demand that President
 Mugabe and his government should allow the elections
 results to be released immediately without being
 tampered with.
 Exert the necessary diplomatic pressure to President
 Mugabe not to declare a state of emergency. Apply
 pressure on the military and intelligence in Zimbabwe
 not to manipulate the elections results and to accept
 the people’s verdict in the elections. Call for SADC
 in conjunction with other international and domestic
 observers to investigate allegations of fraud, so that
 the ZEC announced results may be correlated with
 independent tabulation processes. That SADC together
 with the African Union should be prepared to urgently    engage in a process to assist in resolving any dispute
 that may arise if the results of the elections are
 seriously contested – particularly since the domestic
 electoral courts process is itself not seen as
 legitimate by all but the ruling party.”
 The SADC observer team, as expected, gave its thumbs
 up to the election despite some glaring irregularities
 that included ghost voters aimed at rigging the
 election for Zanu (PF) and Mugabe.