Commonwealth deploys observer teams

The Commonwealth on Wednesday deployed 20 teams of observers across Zimbabwe to monitor the situation in the run-up to the parliamentary elections scheduled for 24 and 25 June, the group said in a statement.

According to the group, the teams will travel extensively throughout the country, where they will meet electoral officials, representatives of political parties and civil society and monitor the preparations to the elections.

The 44-member observer group - led by former Nigerian strongman Abdulsalami Abubakar - rejected warnings by liberation war veterans not to speak to workers on occupied white-owned farms. “Our job is to go and observe. If there is a polling station on farmland, of course we will be meeting with voters,” Abubakar was quoted as saying.

Although the Commonwealth was at pains to stress in a statement to IRIN that no restrictions had been placed on its monitors, others disagreed. News reports quoted an EU representative as saying conditions stipulated by the authorities in Zimbabwe “fall short of internationally accepted standards”.

The deputy head of the EU mission, Senator Tana de Zulueta, told Reuters their observers were unlikely to visit farms occupied by independence war veterans and supporters of the ruling ZANU-PF party because of security concerns.