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TEHRAN, July 29 - Nothing would demonstrate that Zimbabwe has entered a new era since Robert Mugabe's ousting more than a clean election.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) - But the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), which was synonymous with fraud, secrecy and bias under Mugabe, has again been engulfed by allegations of malpractice that threaten the credibility of Monday's vote.
In the last elections in 2013, it was accused of allowing the ruling ZANU-PF party to oversee voter registration and of delaying the release of an electoral roll full of ghost names, dead people and duplicates.
It also allegedly allowed ZANU-PF to assist many supposedly illiterate people to vote, rejected many legitimate votes and printed millions more ballot papers than needed.
This year, it has struggled to present an image of the open, fair election that President Emmerson Mnangagwa has repeatedly promised to deliver since he succeeded long-time leader Mugabe in November.
"The key tenets for a credible election are transparency and accountability -- and ZEC is averse to both," Tawanda Chimhini, head of Zimbabwe's Election Resource Centre monitoring body, told AFP.
"Zimbabwe could have seen a departure from the old way, and ZEC could have been much more transparent -- that would have built public confidence.
"But the commission is making the same mistakes. The credibility of the election will be in dispute regardless of who wins."
Source: AFP
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