1 zimbabwe election support network [zesn] - Nehanda Radio

Accreditation of International and Local Observers and Journalists
International Observers
The exercise was conducted by ZEC and commenced at the Harare and Bulawayo
Polytechnics on the 2 nd of June. Despite an earlier statement that international observers who
observed the 29 March election did not need a new invitation from the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, all international and regional observers were accredited again. International observers
accredited for the run off were the Pan African Parliament and SADC Observer Team, UCF,
AU and ECOWAS. SADC increased its observers from 200 to 413. The MDC T expressed
disappointment in the SADC team which had declared that it had not received reports of
violence. The team visited politically volatile areas with views to collect information and observe
electoral processes in the country’s ten provinces within the 210 constituencies.
A United Nations envoy sent to Zimbabwe to investigate the unrest in the country arrived on the
16 th of June 2008 and began talks with the various stakeholders in the election. However the
UN presence was discredited in state media particularly the Herald as a mere formality, which
would not have any effect. Other observer mission such as the Pan African Parliament [PAP]
began their mission on the 14 th of June with an 18 member team African Union [AU] deployed
its observer team on the 15 th of June 2008 and ECOWAS had presence in the country to
observe the run- off.
Local Observers
Local observers were required to apply for an invitation from the Minister of Justice before
seeking accreditation. Up to 11 June, only international and regional observers and the media
had been accredited. The late invitation of civil society organizations had a negative impact on
the invitation of observers, their accreditation and deployment. However ZEC’s decision to
scale down the numbers of local observers that were placed by the Minister of Justice Legal
and Parliamentary Affairs was a disturbing development.
Twenty days before the 27 June run-off, most local observers had not received invitations for
accreditation. Limits were placed on the number of people that ZESN could field to the ministry
for accreditation, the number effectively reduced from over 8667 in the harmonized election to
500 in the presidential run –off, a development that posed a serious risk to the ability of civil
society to monitor and observe elections in order to identify anomalies in the electoral process
especially on polling day. Since ZEC had reportedly published polling stations in excess of
9231, this warranted more observers as the Electoral Act provided for 2 election observers per
organization per polling station, a situation which would amount to the accreditation of 27 000
observers. These deliberate late invitations prevented local observers to monitor the initial
stages of the electoral processes such as postal ballots and the closing of postal ballots. Also
questionable was why the accreditation of foreign observer missions was extended while the
same privilege was denied to local observers. As a result ZESN did not field any accredited
observers for the run off.
The National Multi-Party Liaison Committee was set up by ZEC and composed of two major
political parties and a declaration condemning political violence was drawn up and signed by
the two main political parties. ZEC increased the number of candidates’ election agents
permitted inside each polling station from one to two per candidate, a development that could
have enhanced the legitimacy of the election. Training of 64 000 constituency election officers
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