A presidential election run-off in Zimbabwe cannot take place given the current levels of violence, the head of a South African contingent of regional election observers said on Wednesday.
”We have seen it, there are people in hospital who said they have been tortured, you have seen pictures, you have seen pictures of houses that have been destroyed and so on,” Kingsley Mamabolo told reporters.
”You cannot have the next round taking place in this atmosphere; it will not be helpful, it will create a whole lot of problems.”
Mamabolo said an eight-person team is currently in Zimbabwe, charged by South African President Thabo Mbeki to investigate claims of violence that have been levelled by both the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and veteran ruler Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party.
Mamabolo would not give details of the itinerary or agenda for the fact-finding team dispatched by Mbeki in his role as chief mediator on Zimbabwe for the 14-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC).
”As mediator and facilitator, he could not just sit around hearing all these stories. So he has sent the team,” said Mamabolo.
”We need to know what the scale of the violence is and who is doing it.”
The team will report to the president and recommend ways of addressing the violence, he added.
The MDC says 25 of its supporters have been killed in the violence following elections on March 29 in which Zanu-PF lost its parliamentary majority and Mugabe suffered a first-round defeat to MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai.
A run-off should in theory take place later this month but electoral officials have dropped strong hints that it could be delayed.
Meanwhile, United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon strongly believes that a future round of elections in Zimbabwe should be conducted in a ”credible and transparent” manner and be monitored by foreign observers, his office said on Wednesday.
Ban ”reiterates his strong belief that future stages of the electoral process must be conducted in a peaceful, credible and transparent manner in the presence of international observers”, it said in a statement.
It added that the UN secretary general ”continues to be concerned by reports of politically motivated violence and intimidation in the country as the current impasse continues”. — AFP
