Zimbabwe Opposition Wants Regional Peacekeepers Before Elections

Zimbabwe’s main opposition party on Sunday enumerated five conditions that should be met to guarantee its participation in second round of presidential polls or face a boycott of the run-off.

Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC’s) conditions for a free and fair presidential election run-off include the assembling of a regional peacekeeping force by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to protect Zimbabweans from politically-motivated violence.

The MDC says its supporters have been tortured, murdered and intimidated by militias linked to the ruling party ZANU PF, since elections on March 29.

ZANU PF has denied the violence allegations, itself blaming the opposition of waging a war against ruling party supporters.

The conditions, which have been submitted to SADC, also include the need for President Mugabe to reconstitute the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) and immediately stop the violence against opposition supporters.

The MDC said ZEC was no longer a credible electoral body after failing to announce for nearly six weeks the results of presidential elections.

The results were only announced on May 2 and showed that MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, scored 47.9 percent in the first round against President Mugabe’s 43.2 percent.

Hence, a second round would be necessary after both candidates failed to win more than 50 percent of the votes.

The MDC accused ZEC of bias and said a new autonomous body should take over before the presidential election run-off.

The opposition party is also demanding unfettered access by international observers during the elections as well as equal access to the public media by both political parties.

The date for the crucial presidential election second round is yet to be set, with ZEC chairperson, George Chiweshe, hinting at the weekend that the polls might be held well after the 21-day constitutional provision.

Source African Press Agency

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