Bernard Kamillius Membe, the head of the SADC observer mission, released the regional grouping’s preliminary report today and said it would deal with the issues of the fairness and credibility of the elections in its final report. The report shall be issued within 30 days.
Membe, who is also the Tanzanian Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, said the elections had gone well “under the circumstances”.
“In the main, the electoral process was characterised by an atmosphere of peace and political tolerance. Political parties and candidates were able to freely undertake their political activities unhindered,” Membe said.
MDC-T President, Morgan Tsvangirai, has described the election as a farce. Membe said the parties should accept the results for the betterment of the country.
He acknowledged that the SADC mission had received a number of concerns from stakeholders.
“Stakeholders raised the following key issues of concern, the timing of the election date, concerns regarding ZEC readiness to conduct the harmonised elections, timeframe for voter registration, challenges relating to the special vote, media conduct,” he said.
Other issues raised included timeous availability of an updated voters’ roll, political intolerance, hate speech and funding.
He said the observer mission derived its mandate from the SADC Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections “which emanate from the African Union Declaration on the Principles Governing Democratic Elections in Africa and the AU Guidelines for African Observation and Monitoring Missions”.
The SADC mission noted the polarisation in the Zimbabwean media. Membe said ZEC had indicated to the mission that the issue of was out of their control due to media political affiliations.
“The Zimbabwe Media Commission indicated that the lack of funding and lack of a unified media code of conduct impede its ability to monitor media,” Membe said.
He said Zimbabwe should implement media reform as stipulated in the Constitution. The observer mission recommended the continuous updating of the voters’ roll “in line with the national population registry and the availing of the voters’ roll on time for inspection”.
SADC followed the AU in recommending that aggrieved parties should seek recourse through the courts or adopt dialogue.
“SEOM would like to call on all political parties to respect and accept the election results as will be announced by the constitutionally mandated Zimbabwe Electoral Commission,” Membe said.
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