At Parirenyatwa, for instance, the SADC team, voters told The Zimbabwean, did not last beyond a quarter of an hour at the polling station whey they apppended their signatures as proof that they had observed the voting process.
“They were here for about 15 minutes and left as quickly as they arrived and I wonder what exactly it is that they observed in such a short space of time,” said one voter. “How then are they going to come up with an accurate assessment of how the voting was done? Maybe their superiors need to work on increasing their numbers because they are probably stretched,” she added.
The Zimbabwean could not establish how the team conducted itself at other polling stations, though. The observers started arriving on Monday, with 40 members from the Sadc Parliamentary Forum jetting into the country.
The team was led by Prince Guduza Dlamini, who is the Speaker of the National Assembly of Swaziland and it deployed its members to the country's 10 provinces on Tuesday.
The observation team comprised parliamentarians from Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania and Zambia.
SADC Executive Secretary, Tomaz Augusto Salomao, is also in the country with the team of observers.
Post published in: News