Human Rights Watch 1 August 2013 Zimbabweans are waiting for official results from yesterday’s presidential elections but President Robert Mugabe’s ruling ZANU-PF party seems confident of victory. We’ve spent weeks investigating the run-up to the poll as well as informally watching the voting, and what we saw supports wider concerns raised today by local monitors. They report that a high number of “ghost” or duplicate voters were present on the voters’ roll and that large numbers of people were unfairly turned away from polling stations. In the run-up to election day, we documented major flaws in the electoral process, including Read the full article…

International Crisis Group 29 July 2013 A return to protracted political crisis, and possibly extensive violence, is likely, as Zimbabwe holds inadequately prepared presidential, parliamentary and local elections on 31 July. Conditions for a free and fair vote do not exist. Confidence in the process and institutions is low. The voters roll is a shambles, security forces unreformed and the media grossly imbalanced. The electoral commission is under-funded and lacked time to prepare. Concerns about rigging are pervasive, strongly disputed results highly likely. The Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the African Union (AU) face severe credibility tests. They must Read the full article…

Testimony of Dewa Mavhinga of Human Rights Watch to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee 18 June 2013 Excerpt: In September 2008 President Mugabe’s ZANU-PF and the two factions of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party, led by Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara, agreed to a Global Political Agreement (GPA) to form a power-sharing government, formed officially in February 2009. The main purpose of the so-called unity government was to establish institutional and legal reforms to create a conducive environment for the holding of free and fair elections. The unity government, however, left Mugabe and ZANU-PF—because of their control of Read the full article…

Amnesty International 13 June 2013 Zimbabwe’s government must focus on protecting human rights in the run-up to elections, Amnesty International said today as the country’s leaders publicly disputed the date the vote should be held. “Whatever date is decided for the election, the government’s absolute priority must be making sure the violence that erupted during the 2008 vote is not repeated,” said Netsanet Belay, Amnesty International’s Africa director. “All the rights enshrined in Zimbabwe’s new constitution must be respected by the security forces. This is especially important in view of the role they played in organizing violence against perceived political Read the full article…