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SADC observers arrive in Zim
11/03/2008 13:04 - (SA)
Harare - The first team of election observers from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) has arrived in Zimbabwe ahead of legislative and presidential polls on March 29, state media has reported.
The government-run Herald newspaper said 50 election observers had arrived in Harare and their numbers would be bolstered before polling day.
"We are here at the invitation of the Zimbabwean government, but more importantly we are here because Zimbabwe is a member state so we need to take ownership of these elections," Tanki Mothae, the director of SADC's defence and security department, was quoted as saying.
Zimbabwe had invited 47 teams of monitors from regional groupings such as SADC and the African Union as well as from countries including China, Russia and Iran with whom President Robert Mugabe enjoyed relatively good relations.
Zimbabwe's Foreign Minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi announced last week that European Union member states and the United States - which both accused Mugabe of rigging his re-election in 2002 - had not been invited to monitor voting.
Mothae said that a preliminary SADC mission had visited Zimbabwe last month.
He said: "The preliminary team studied the number of and size of constituencies and their boundaries and the number of candidates contesting the elections, among other issues.
"It was after that preliminary assessment that we were able to determine the number of observers needed and wrote to member countries to nominate at least 10 observers because there are to many constituencies in this election."
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