Poll watchdog, the Election Resource Centre (ERC), has deployed a delegation ahead of the SADC Summit to push for comprehensive alignment of electoral reforms with the Constitution of Zimbabwe, which the government is hesitant to implement.
In 2013, just after the July 31 disputed elections, the regional body, SADC, gave a plethora of issues around violence and intimidation, media coverage, political environment, freedom of association and assembly among others, that the government must consider before another national poll, however, four years after the recommendations government has only made a few minor changes.
“Zimbabwe heads towards yet another General Election in less than 12 months. The election comes in the wake of outstanding irregularities as raised by regional and local observers such as the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the African Union, and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), based on observations from the 2013 elections.
“In that light, election stakeholders, particularly civil society organisations and political parties in Zimbabwe have continuously called for comprehensive reforms towards peaceful, free, fair and credible electoral processes with the Election Resource Centre (ERC) emphasising on legislative, environmental and administrative frameworks guiding elections in the country,” the ERC executive director, Tawanda Chimhini said.
Chimhini said the organisation also intends to advocate for a regional strategy to address Zimbabwe’s administrative, legislative and environmental electoral frameworks ahead of the 2018 elections.
“SADC must encourage Zimbabwean government to respect the independence of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC),” Chimhini said.
The ERC executive director also said the organisation intends to “implore SADC to urgently deploy a good mission to assess progress on state of preparedness to conduct peaceful, free, fair and credible elections in Zimbabwe.”
The organisation is also imploring SADC to deploy long term SADC observers ahead of the 2018 make or break general elections.
The ERC partnered with other civic society organisations such as Heal Zimbabwe Trust, Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, ZimRights and the Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) in South Africa to advocate for reforms.
