International development agencies, Progressio, Tearfund, Trócaire, the Foundation for Development and Partnership in Africa (FEPA), and Christian Aid have warned that Zimbabwe is becoming increasingly tense as election results continue to hang in the balance.
All five agencies are deeply concerned about the counting and tabulation of votes cast in Zimbabwe’s March 29th elections despite the results of the parliamentary elections being declared the day before yesterday. The failure of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) to adequately explain the delays in releasing official results and the discrepancies between ZEC tallies of votes cast and those of independent observers are leading to increasing the risk of heightened tension in the country.
Noel Kututwa, Chairperson of Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) said in a general statement: “While it is the responsibility of ZEC to announce the official results of the election, it is the legal duty of election observers to provide the people of Zimbabwe with independent non-partisan information on all aspects of the electoral process.”
Agencies in Zimbabwe say that Zimbabweans feel betrayed by the failure of ZEC to declare the results of the presidential elections.
They say they are particularly concerned that the slow release of results continues to fuel well-founded fears that the official results have been tampered with.
Members of the SADC observer mission left Harare prior to the official announcement of polls and did not observe the counting and tabulation of results. The SADC mission on Sunday stated that the ‘will of the people had prevailed’. The agencies say they regard this as premature given that an election is only concluded when the results have been communicated to and accepted as true by the electorate.
The departure of the SADC observer mission prior to announcement of results is also considered to constitute a violation of their mandate as laid out in SADC guidelines for observing elections. It also differs from previous years when regional observer teams were deployed to observe voting and counting processes.
In light of these concerns and of the current dispute about the presidential poll, the five agencies are calling for the presidential election results to be published forthwith, and an external mediation team of reputed individuals from the region to assist with the talks between Zanu PF and MDC in the event of a disputed outcome.
The Zimbabwe Christian Alliance is also sending delegations to the region. Delegation member Reverend Albert Chatindo said: “We don’t want any bloodshed so this is an effort that we are taking as church leaders to ask SADC and the AU to intervene. The church stands for the suffering people of Zimbabwe and they are continuing to suffer as they wait for the results. We are concerned that the possibility of violence is increasing.”