The Southern African Development Community (SADC) is to send a beefed-up observer mission for Zimbabwe’s run-off election next month to ensure “greater transparency”, Angola’s Foreign Minister was quoted as saying on Monday.
Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has been lobbying the 14-nation SADC to send more observers to ensure a fair run-off against veteran President Robert Mugabe.
Speaking to state news agency Angop, Angola’s Foreign Minister, Joao Miranda, said SADC planned to increase the number of its observers. The organisation sent 120 observers to the March 29 first round.
“We have in perspective increasing the number of observers to the presidential run-off set for June 27 so as to assure greater transparency and trust in the process,” he said.
Angola heads the security and defence committee of SADC.
The disputed first-round of voting in Zimbabwe has been followed by violence that the opposition claims is designed to rig the run-off.
No Western monitors were allowed to oversee the first ballot and teams from SADC and the African Union were widely criticised for giving it a largely clean bill of health.
Rights groups and the United Nations have said the attacks are being directed mainly at followers of Tsvangirai’s party, with pro-government militias accused of a campaign of terror in the countryside.
Tsvangirai set a number of conditions for his participation in the run-off, including the deployment of international monitors. He had also called for peacekeepers from SADC.
Returning to Zimbabwe on Saturday after a more than six-week absence spent lobbying SADC leaders, he called for peacekeepers and monitors to be deployed by June 1.
“You can’t have peacekeepers and observers two weeks before an election; they will not be of any benefit.” — AFP