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Writes Lloyd Rabaya
The Election Resource Centre (ERC) yesterday raised concern over the continued intimidation of its accredited observers and staff who observed the harmonised elections.
The coercion comes after the arrest of a combined 39 ERC and Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) observers on allegations that they had intended to announce the 2023 harmonised elections results.
In a statement, the ERC highlighted that its observers were being called to their respective polling stations to sign new V11 election forms.
“The observers have informed our offices that they are being summoned to polling stations to sign “new” V11 results forms as there are errors on previous ones and, in other instances being summoned to bring any phone used to communicate with ERC offices on election day,” read part of the statement.
While some of the observers were summoned over the phone, some of them in Karoi, Kariba, and Makoni have been visited at their homesteads.
The ERC also emphasised that the intimidation has had serious consequences on the need to hold free, fair, and credible elections and called on the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission (ZHRC), and the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) to put a stop to the persisting intimidation.
“The ERC would like to reiterate that there is no legal framework that enforces election observers to return and sign amended results sheets or return copies of results sheets outside of a court order mandating them to do so,” the statement continues.
The ERC also reported that two of its staff were followed by unmarked cars, yesterday, from the Rotten Row courts after the granting of bail to the 35 ERC and ZESN employees and volunteers.