DA receives 'alarming' reports out of Zimbabwe

The initial impressions of the Democratic Alliance’s observers to Zimbabwe’s March 31 elections so far have been alarming, party leader Tony Leon said on Friday.

Writing in his weekly newsletter on the DA’s website, he said the observers reported widespread intimidation of opposition members and supporters.

Members of NGOs are arrested when they try to conduct voter education programmes, and many Zimbabweans believe members of the Zanu-PF youth militias will seek violent retribution after the elections against people in areas where the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has a strong showing.

“Our observers also describe a media environment in which Zanu-PF enjoys continuous coverage, while the MDC was only allowed on to state television 30 days prior to the elections and still receives very little positive coverage.

“State-controlled newspapers continue to rail against imagined foreign enemies,” he said.

The DA’s observers also suggested that parliamentary constituencies have been gerrymandered to reduce the opposition vote in both urban and rural areas, and that the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission has no physical infrastructure to allow it to carry out its responsibilities.

They also reported allegations that the government is stockpiling food aid for distribution by Zanu-PF agents during the elections to reward government supporters and to punish voters who choose the opposition.

These abuses are being ignored by the African National Congress, making it complicit in them, Leon said.

“There are surely men and women of good conscience in the ranks of the ANC who realise, privately, that the Zimbabwean elections could not possibly be free or fair, and that South Africa’s approach is hurting our international image and harming our national interests. Yet they are silent.”

Their colleagues in the various observer missions in Zimbabwe appear determined to ignore all of the violations, great and small, that President Robert Mugabe and his Zanu-PF regime are committing against the Southern African Development Community’s Mauritius Protocol and the people of Zimbabwe, Leon said.—Sapa