Zimbabwe:No confidence in the electoral process without local election monitors
As international pressure grows on Zimbabwe to accept the immediate deployment of observers for upcoming presidential elections, now less than 40 days away, Amnesty International calls upon the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group and the European Union to insist that local monitors should also be involved in monitoring the polls.
* News Release Issued by the International Secretariat of Amnesty
International *
29 January 2002
AFR 46/007/2002
18/02
As international pressure grows on Zimbabwe to accept the
immediate deployment of observers for upcoming presidential
elections, now less than 40 days away, Amnesty International
calls upon the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group and the
European Union to insist that local monitors should also be
involved in monitoring the polls.
"International and regional observers, even if they are
allowed into Zimbabwe in the next week, would work best alongside
local civil society observers who are experienced in detecting
vote rigging," Amnesty International said. "International
promotion and protection of human rights should be a partnership
between Zimbabwean civil society and the international
community," the organization said.
Amnesty International appealed to the Commonwealth
Ministerial Action Group, meeting in London on 30 January, to
press Zimbabwe to allow its own civil society to scrutinize the
conduct of the presidential elections on 9 and 10 March without
state interference.
Amendments to the election code passed into law in
December 2001 created a government-controlled body that will
accredit only those local, regional and international observers
who have been invited by the foreign affairs minister or the
Electoral Supervisory Commission (ESC) to observe the 9 to 10
March election. This provision contains the risk that only
members of the Zimbabwe civil society whose political opinion
government approves of will be allowed to observe the election.
Further, the new changes to the election code allow only
chosen civil service employees to actually monitor the vote
count. Only monitors, as opposed to observers, may bring
irregularities in the conduct of the poll to the authorities'
attention. Previously, in the June 2000 parliamentary elections,
domestic Zimbabwean monitors played a key role in detecting
attempts to rig the polls.
Other stipulations in the new electoral code bans any
foreign donations for voter education, limits all voter education
materials to those approved by the ESC, and threatens six months
imprisonment for anyone not registered by the ESC carrying out
voter education.
Amnesty International reaffirms the views of the local
chapter of Transparency International, which noted that a
"prerequisite for a fair electoral process is the independent
monitoring of the poll -- by international but also by domestic
observers."
The organization this week mobilized its worldwide
membership to ask parliamentarians abroad to contact Zimbabwean
members of parliament to provide them with encouragement and call
attention to any violent attacks against them -- amid a
government crack-down on campaigning.
Two rallies by the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)
have been broken up recently. Last week, some 25 MDC supporters
were arrested in Bulawayo by police after ruling party supporters
blocked their rally. Police acted in a clearly partisan manner by
allowing the Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front
(ZANU-PF) to prevent a lawful, peaceful assembly. On the weekend,
further reports indicated a second rally involving two members of
parliament in the suburbs of Harare was also violently suppressed
by the ruling party, assisted by riot police.
"We do not support or oppose any government, nor support
or oppose the political views of the people whose rights it tries
to protect, but are solely concerned about the rapid escalation
of human rights violations in Zimbabwe," Amnesty International
reiterated. The great majority of abuses committed since the
run-up to the June 2000 elections have been perpetrated by ruling
party activists against opposition supporters.
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