admin
The AU statement follows utterances by Ms Lindiwe Zulu, international relations advisor to South African president Jacob Zuma, who is Sadc facilitator to the Global Political Agreement that paved way for the inclusive Government.
Ms Zulu was quoted by sections of the Western and local private media as saying, “We are concerned because things on the ground are not looking good.”
It, however, could not be established who the “we’’ Ms Zulu was referring to was as Mr Zuma was appointed GPA facilitator in his personal capacity.
Addressing the media after the 385th meeting of the Peace and Security Council in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, yesterday, Dr Aisha Abdullahi — AU Commissioner for Political Affairs — said assessments by the AU Observer Mission showed Zimbabwe was on course to a credible vote.
“According to our observers on the ground, we believe that it is possible to have free and fair elections in Zimbabwe. But we cannot guarantee that it will be the most perfect or optimum of situations,” Dr Abdullahi was quoted as saying by AFP.
A 10-member AU Long-Term Observer Mission arrived in Zimbabwe on June 18 and is set to be joined by a 60-member Short-Term Observer team led by former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo which is expected in Harare from tomorrow.
“The environment in Zimbabwe so far reassures us that the conditions are good for the election to be held on July 31,” Dr Abdullahi said.
“The Peace and Security Council has noted the levels of preparation for the election and confirmed that the funding gap has been filled,” she said.
The PSC met to discuss elections in Madagascar, Togo and Mali, among other issues
Justice and Legal Affairs Minister Patrick Chinamasa briefed the meeting on the country’s state of preparedness for the harmonised elections.
Special voting held on Sunday and Monday was marred by logistical challenges, among them delayed start to voting, late delivery or no delivery of ballot papers at some polling stations, among other issues.
This was blamed on a spirited campaign by the MDC formations to scupper the vote to abet their call for poll postponement.
Sources close to developments said the MDC formations employed several strategies to sabotage the special vote, leaving ZEC with only 24 hours to print and distribute the ballot papers as well as deploy staff to 209 polling centres that were set up for special voting countrywide.
The MDCs filed 47 nomination court appeals between them that culminated in delays in the printing of ballot papers as ZEC did not know the final candidate list till Friday.
As if that was not enough, MDC-T reportedly abused the two critical portfolios held by ministers drawn from its ranks to frustrate the printing of ballots at Printflow and Fidelity Printers, that fall under the Ministry of Finance, whose machines inexplicably reported double breakdowns; and suspicious power cuts that bedevilled only Msasa where the printing was taking place when the rest of the city was lit.
When the ballots were availed, the MDC formations went on to connive with some elements in ZEC, at the level of commissioners, to sabotage the chain of command to foment confusion on the ground.
The situation was also compounded by the sheer incompatibility of the Special Vote system to the First Past the Post system used in Zimbabwe as the Special Vote, which the GPA negotiators copied from South Africa, is suitable for systems of Proportional Representation that do not use the ward-based voting provided for in the Electoral Act.
MDC-T and its allies had latched on to the Special Voting debacle in a bid to make a case for poll postponement.
Online Reporter