The Democratic Alliance’s fact-finding delegation to Zimbabwe has been turned back by immigration officials, the party confirmed on Friday afternoon.
Party spokesperson Martin Slabbert said the delegation — led by national chairperson Joe Seremane — was told by officials at Harare airport that they “are not allowed to enter the country”.
The three-man delegation was told that they had seven days to appeal the decision, but urged them to take the next flight out of Zimbabwe back to South Africa — “in 30 minutes”.
Slabbert said they were told: “Please make sure you are on that flight.”
DA chief whip Douglas Gibson and a senior party researcher for security, Paul Boughey, were part of the delegation.
They are expected to return to South Africa at 3.30pm on Friday afternoon.
The delegation was originally scheduled to leave Zimbabwe on Sunday at 13.25pm.
Seremane said on Thursday: “The visit is a sincere endeavour to determine whether the conditions exist for a free and fair election in Zimbabwe.”
The parliamentary election is scheduled for March 31.
Recently a Congress of South African Trade Union (Cosatu) delegation was turned back by Zimbabwean authorities.
On Friday, an African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) statement called the DA fact-finding mission “an activity of mercenaries”.
“The DA, through its spokesperson for their mercenary mission to Zimbabwe, pretends to be interested in the living conditions of the people’s of Zimbabwe … the truth is that the DA wants the democratic elected government of Zimbabwe to be replaced by something which has been rejected by even the MDC [Movement for Democratic Change],” the ANCYL said, adding that the DA is a “shopsteward of the West, particularly Britain”.
“The fact that they have put an African [Seremane] as their spokesperson to legitimise their activities will not fool us,” the statement said.