PRETORIA, South Africa (AFP) — A presidential election runoff in Zimbabwe cannot take place given the current levels of violence, said the head of a South African contingent of regional election observers.
“We have seen it, there are people in [a] hospital who said they have been tortured, you have seen pictures, you have seen pictures of houses that have been destroyed and so on,” Kingsley Mamabola told reporters.
“You cannot have the next round taking place in this atmosphere; it will not be helpful, it will create a whole lot of problems,” Mamabola said.
He also said an eight-person team is currently in Zimbabwe charged by South African President Thabo Mbeki to investigate claims of violence that have been leveled by both the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and veteran ruler Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party.
Mambolo would not give details of the itinerary or agenda for the fact-finding team dispatched by Mbeki in his role as chief mediator on Zimbabwe for the 14-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC).
“As mediator and facilitator, he could not just sit around hearing all these stories. So he has sent the team,” Mamabola said.
“We need to know what the scale of the violence is and who is doing it.”
The team will report to the president and recommend ways of addressing the violence, he added.
The MDC says 25 of its supporters have been killed in the violence following elections on March 29 in which ZANU-PF lost its parliamentary majority and Mugabe suffered a first round defeat to MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai.
A runoff should, in theory, take place later this month but electoral officials have dropped strong hints that it could be delayed.
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