Johannesburg – President Robert Mugabe’s ruling party has used threats and intimidation against opposition supporters ahead of this month’s key elections which now cannot be free and fair,said Amnesty International.

The London-based rights watchdog, which despatched a fact-finding team to Zimbabwe last month, said in a report that, although the level of violence was lower than in the run-ups to previous polls, the playing field was far from level.

Kolawole Olaniyan, director of the Africa programme, said: “Persistent, long-term and systematic violations of human rights and the government’s repeated and deliberate failure to bring to justice those suspected to be responsible means that Zimbabweans are unable to take part in the election process freely and without fear.”

“The use of implicit threats and non-violent tactics to intimidate opposition supporters is widespread,” he said.

Impending shortage of food

Amnesty also said the government was misusing meagre foodstocks against the backdrop of an impending shortage as an “instrument of political pressure” by allocating it only to supporters of Mugabe’s ruling Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF).

Zimbabwe has pledged to hold a free and fair parliamentary vote on March 31, after two elections in 2000 and 2002 which were marred by violence and allegations of vote-rigging.

The report said that between the end of January and the beginning of March, at least eight candidates of the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party, which is contesting the polls, were arrested or detained by police.

“Opposition campaign workers have also been arrested while engaging in peaceful campaign-related activities,” it said.

Amnesty said there had “been significantly fewer reports of politically-motivated violence” this time around.

But, it noted this could be part of a government “strategy to ensure the elections are free from overt violence while using implicit threats and non-violent tactics to intimidate voters.”

Select observer missions

Amnesty urged all foreign monitors invited to observe the polls to closely watch out for wrongdoing and monitor “security of all parties, candidates and supporters before and after the elections” and see how foodstocks were being distributed in areas with a history of chronic shortages.

Zimbabwe has invited select observer missions, but none from the European Union, whose monitors were also barred from supervising the 2002 presidential election won by President Robert Mugabe, who has led his country since independence in 1980.

Mugabe’s party is hoping to buttress its nearly 25-year-old stranglehold on power in the elections.

Edited by Iaine Harper

Source: News24.Com
URL: http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/Sha…/p>