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ZIMBABWE: Concern over the absence of SADC and EISA teams at poll
IRIN News
March 14, 2005

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46098

JOHANNESBURG - Human rights activists and election observers are concerned that two of the "most credible" election observer groups in Southern African will not be in Zimbabwe for the 31 March elections.

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) Parliamentary Forum and the Johannesburg-based Electoral Institute of Southern Africa (EISA) have not been invited to observe the Zimbabwean general elections.

EISA has been involved in 20 elections, while the SADC Forum has witnessed polls in 10 countries in the region since 1999, and was the only African observer mission not to declare Zimbabwe's controversial 2002 presidential ballot free and fair.

The national director of the Zimbabwe Election Support Network, Rindai Chipfunde-Vava, told IRIN, "We are very concerned - if the elections are open and we have nothing to hide, why has the invitation not been extended to the two bodies who have extensive experience of observing elections in the region?"

The SADC Parliamentary Forum said it was not going to observe this month's ballot as it had "not been invited in its own right as an autonomous institution of SADC, which is a fundamental departure from the established practice".

Brian Kagoro, chief executive of the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, a group of pro-democracy NGOs, remarked that the list of approved electoral observers included a large number of government delegations and few representatives from independent bodies.

The Zimbabwean government maintained that it had invited SADC, and "this implies an invitation to any arms of SADC", spokesman George Charamba told IRIN. "We fail to understand how the forum can call itself an autonomous body of SADC - what does that mean?"

The head of EISA, Dennis Kadima, commented, "When observers are restricted, one questions whether the government is hiding something. We at EISA not only observe elections, we have also been documenting electoral processes for the benefit of all the countries in the region."

In the absence of the SADC and EISA teams, Chipfunde-Vava suggested that the government in Harare should increase the representation of local NGOs as observers.

"Zimbabwe cannot get away with a lie - it has misrepresented the SADC Parliamentary Forum as some sort of unofficial body merely falling under SADC," said South African Joe Seremane, a Democratic Alliance party parliamentarian and member of the proposed observer mission.

Two different positions on the SADC forum's proposed mission to Zimbabwe emerged from the South African Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) last week.

"The SADC Parliamentary Forum ... has no locus standi in terms of official SADC structures," the South African Press Agency (SAPA) quoted DFA spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa as saying.

"As far as the [South African] government is concerned, Zimbabwe has invited the national parliaments of SADC member states, which will allow for report-backs to sovereign national parliaments post the elections. On the other hand, the SADC Parliamentary Forum would have no fora to report back on its findings," he said.

However, last Wednesday DFA director-general Ayanda Ntsaluba described the Zimbabwean government's refusal to invite the forum as a "difficult situation".

Ntsaluba said he was aware, and so were others, that the parliamentary forum had not been complimentary about the outcome of the last election, and he could see why Zimbabwe's latest decision would be greeted with "cynicism", reported SAPA.

Referring to the comments made by Mamoepa last week, Seremane claimed the DFA "was aiding and abetting" the Zimbabwean government.

The Zimbabwean opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has said it was "increasingly perplexed" by the South African government's claims that the 31 March elections "will be free and fair".

According to MDC secretary-general Welshman Ncube, the electoral environment "is actually worse than it was during the March 2002 presidential elections".

In a statement on Sunday Ncube said, "The MDC does not understand the South African government's ignorance about the situation in Zimbabwe and the basis for such optimism, and believes that the position adopted by the government is not only misinformed, but also dangerously premature."

The MDC ran the ruling ZANU-PF a close second in the last legislative elections in 2000 in a poll marred by violence. The MDC decided last month to lift an election boycott following the government's acceptance of SADC electoral guidelines.

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