Source: UK says ready to observe Zim polls –Newsday Zimbabwe
The United Kingdom (UK) and its allies have said they are ready to monitor and observe Zimbabwe’s polls expected to be held in August if they are invited.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa has since hinted that countries that have in the past invited Zimbabwe to their plebiscites will be the only ones allowed to observe the country’s harmonised elections.
Recently, UK Conservative member Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park was asked by Labour Party member Lord Boateng whether the UK and its allies were considering sending election observers to Zimbabwe’s polls.
In response, Goldsmith said the UK was working alongside international partners to prepare support for domestic and international election observer missions.
“However, as is standard practice, invitations for observation missions will not be issued by the government of Zimbabwe until the election date is announced. Alongside a small British embassy Harare electoral monitoring mission, we hope to see larger electoral missions from the African Union, Southern African Development Community, European Union, Commonwealth and other non-governmental organisations,” Goldsmith said.
In his latest weekly column in a State-run newspaper, Mnangagwa said Zimbabwe would not be dictated on who to invite to observe its elections.
“The time will soon come when we will not accept that condescending and even racist view of a pecking order when it comes to measuring electoral democracy unfolding in our sovereign countries, and which in any event is meant for our people,” Mnangagwa said.
In the past international observer, missions have ruled Zimbabwe’s elections as not free and fair
COMMENTS
No way UK – stay away!! You Poms facilitated the installation of the despot RGM and his enduring murderous regime. Even Judith Todd, a worthy nemesis to Ian Smith and Rhodesian rule, pleaded for Britain NOT to install that indigenous tyrant, predicting accurately what many in the country knew full well would happen. Instead HM Govt. listened to the flawed rhetoric of the likes of Peter Hain and many other quasi trendies before initiating action that destroyed a well functioning country and condemned ALL of its citizens to a future bereft of stability, financial dignity or even faint hope, let alone any semblance of democratic political equality
Right or wrong Mugabe was voted into power by Zimbabweans. The current mess is entirely self inflicted.
As I recall, ZEC would not allow observers to watch over the ballot tallying… so, “observe” the polling places all you want… that won’t prevent bus-loads of voters being transferred out of sight from one place to another to cast their multiple VOTES…!