Honest Voting

The Zimbabwean runoff election campaign continues to be troubled, as the major opposition party Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) accuses Zimbabwean police and activists of the ruling ZANU-PF party of violent threats and intimidation.

The MDC secretary-general Tendai Biti was arrested today on charges of treason and of premature announcement of election results. Meanwhile, MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai has been arrested three times in just over a week, also for premature announcement of results before the official announcement of results by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, said police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena, according to a Reuters report in the Africa news website The Daily Nation.

Last month, reports AllAfrica, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, said that “there appears to be an increasing pattern of people being targeted for politically motivated assassination. At another, arrests, harassment, intimidation and violence — directed not just at people with political affiliations, but also at members of civil society — are continuing on a daily basis.”

Observers from the southern African regional body Southern African Development Community (SADC) expect that monitoring the upcoming June 27 election will be difficult; monitors from Western countries critical of Mugabe will not be allowed. Tanki Mothae, team leader and director of SADC’s Organ on Politics, Defence and Security told a news conference today that this month’s election would be a “D-Day election”. SADC now plans to deploy as many as 400 election observers.

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