Tsvangirai party claims election report not fully endorsed by SADC

HARARE. Zimbabwe’s opposition party led by former prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai have dismissed an election observer report of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) as not being universally endorsed by all countries in the 15-nation regional grouping.

Friday, September 06, 2013
Former Zimbabwean prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai. Net photo.

HARARE. Zimbabwe’s opposition party led by former prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai have dismissed an election observer report of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) as not being universally endorsed by all countries in the 15-nation regional grouping.The MDC-T party on Thursday said in a statement that the SADC stance unveiled recently was not comprehensive, inaccurate and failed to address fundamental issues that were critical in determining the freeness, fairness and credibility of the elections. Head of the SADC observer mission, Tanzanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Bernard Membe, on Monday presented the report which endorsed Zimbabwe’s July 31 elections as free, peaceful and generally credible. The MDC-T claimed that the summary of the report is not a SADC report but the one emanating from Membe, which the full members of the SADC observer mission have not endorsed.In the elections, Tsvangirai lost to President Robert Mugabe who garnered 61 percent against his 34 percent. The MDC-T also lost heavily in parliamentary elections, with Zanu-PF getting 160 seats against the opposition party’s 49. After withdrawing its legal challenge against Mugabe’s win, the party said it would pursue diplomatic and political channels to resolve the "election crisis”.