South African President Jacob Zuma today said he hoped Zimbabwe will have peaceful elections that will be declared free and fair so that it can get on with the job of reconstructing the country.
Speaking in Pretoria, Zuma, who is the Southern African Development Community’s chief mediator for Zimbabwe said: “So we would say to the Zimbabweans, please have your elections in peace so that they can be declared free and fair, so that the Zimbabweans can then face the task of reconstructing Zimbabwe and indeed proving that democracy can come back to Zimbabwe. So we wish them well. We wish all the parties well in their campaign.”
He added: “… I think you will agree with me that in the last elections, by this time there were problems in Zimbabwe, with violence etc, and everybody was convinced the elections were on a very slippery kind of slope, but I can say today there has been a very, very, very good atmosphere.”
The West, which has put Zimbabwe under pressure to have free and fair elections, says it will recognise the result of the elections if they are declared to be free and fair by the African observers from the African Union and SADC.
Only the United States has set its own rules.
The Movement for Democratic Change has complained throughout the campaign that there is no way the elections can be free and fair because Zimbabwe had not carried out the necessary reforms, the elections were rushed and it had no access to the State media.
MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai said the elections were illegitimate regardless of who wins.
Zimbabwe is holding its elections on Wednesday. The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission has promised to release the results by 5 August.
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