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This article participates on the following special index pages:
Index of results, reports, press stmts and articles on March 31 2005 General Election - post Mar 30
US
observer mission condemns Zim Poll
The Daily
News Online
April 06, 2005
http://www.daily-news.co.za
HARARE - THE United
States Observer mission to Zimbabwe"s recent elections has denounced the
manner in which the parliamentary poll was conducted saying it was fraught
with irregularities irrespective of the peace that prevailed throughout
the country.
In a press statement,
the US Embassy in Harare said its observers had noted "several patterns
of irregularities that raised concerns about the freeness and fairness
of the process".
"Of particular
concern was a lack of transparency in the tabulation of vote counts,"
the embassy said. "The US observers were excluded from observing
counts in four polling stations. Where they were admitted, observers and
officials, including party representatives and neutral domestic observers
were locked in the polling station and not permitted to communicate with
anyone outside."
However the US embassy
said uniformed policemen were observed communicating the vote tallies
via radio and telephone.
The embassy said in
several observed instances, the presiding officer confiscated the notes
compiled by party polling agents and independent observers before letting
them depart the polling station.
The concerns of the
Zimbabwe embassy of the US government follows widespread condemnation
of the election result by several western governments and the opposition.
Their statement comes
hardly a week after US secretary of State Condoleeza Rice denounced the
conduct of the March 31 poll as lacking credibility.
She said although
the campaign and election day itself were peaceful, the election process
was neither free nor fair.
The opposition Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC), the only opposition party to contest in all
of the 120 contested constituencies yesterday reported that it had established
irregularities in 76 constituencies.
The US embassy said
it sent out 25 teams of diplomats accredited as election observers by
the Electoral Supervisory Commission (ESC). They observed more than 350
polling stations in 59 constituencies.
They also queried
the roles of Zanu PF agents and the police in the supervision and conduct
of the polling stations. In the operation of Zimbabwe Election Commission
(ZEC) tabulation centres, the US office said the embassy observers witnessed
uniformed
policemen participating
in the vote compilation instead of the ZEC officials at the respective
constituencies.
Other irregularities
the US embassy observed include the biased citing of some polling stations,
the high number of voters turned away and the failure by the ZEC to release
the voting results of any polling station.
In an apparent indictment
of the ZEC, the US Embassy said: "The ZEC has failed to explain why
its initial release of totals of ballots cast only included six of the
country’s 10 provinces, neither has it explained why it never released
results for the remaining four provinces.
"Moreover it
has failed to explain why discrepancies its announced figure for ballots
cast in constituencies for those six provinces differed so rastically
from the subsequently released official combined vote totals for candidates
in the constituencies."
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