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This article participates on the following special index pages:
Zimbabwe's Elections 2013 - Index of Articles
Statement
on the pre-election conditions for the 2013 harmonised elections
SAPES Trust
July
30, 2013
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We, the organisations
meeting as the SAPES Policy Dialogue Forum, wish to state our deepest
concerns about the very serious problems that have emerged in the
run-up
to the 2013 harmonised elections to be held tomorrow, 31st July
2013.
At the outset,
we wish to point out that SADC itself had reservations that there
was sufficient time for the holding of credible elections. As was
stated in the communiqué from the Extraordinary SADC Summit
in June 2013:
8.4. Summit
endorsed the report of the Facilitator and its recommendations which
includes, among others, the following issues:
1. Media reform;
2. Upholding the Rule of Law;
3. The role of the Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee
(JOMIC);
4. Election date, validity of electoral regulations; and
5. Deployment of SADC observers
8.5 Summit acknowledged
the ruling of
the Constitutional Court of Zimbabwe on the elections date and agreed
on the need for the Government of Zimbabwe to engage the Constitutional
Court to seek more time beyond 31 July 2013 deadline for holding
the harmonised elections.
8.6 Summit urged
the three parties of the GPA to undertake immediate measures to
create a conducive environment for the holding of peaceful, credible,
free and fair elections.
Against this
background, we wish to make the following statement about the credibility
of the elections to be held tomorrow.
We note that
the SADC Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections
lay down explicit conditions to be adhered to by member states,
as well as explicit criteria for the observation of elections in
member countries by SADC Observer Missions (see Appendix 1). We
note here the SADC Facilitator’s report to the Summit (that
was accepted by all parties to the Global
Political Agreement) made explicit reference to the need for
adherence to the SADC Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic
Elections.
We would assert
in the strongest possible terms that the conditions that currently
apply to the elections violate the SADC Principles in a number of
ways that we will detail below. Furthermore, we would equally assert
that these violations are already observable under the Guidelines
for the Observations of elections.
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