Foreign observers and the 2002 Zimbabwean presidential election

Updated February 2002

After weeks of prevarication over the issue of election observers for Zimbabwe's forthcoming presidential election, the government finally ordered the head of the Union (EU) observer mission, Pierre Schori, to leave the country. The EU retaliated by imposing "smart sanctions" on President Mugabe and his close associates, which include a travel ban and an assets freeze, and withdrawing the remnants of the EU observer mission.

Pierre Schori, who is Sweden's ambassador to the United Nations, was expelled after the Zimbabwean government refused to accept his credentials as head of the EU observer mission. The Zimbabwean government had invited individual EU members to observe the presidential election, but had rejected observers from Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland and Denmark, which President Mugabe accuses of supporting the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

In inviting a select group of EU countries to observe the presidential election, the Zimbabwean government stipulated that they should join a mission led by the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of nations. Pierre Schori, who arrived in Zimbabwe on a tourist visa, disregarded this stipulation. President Mugabe views the EU's attempts to observe the election as neo-colonialist interference in a sovereign country's affairs.

The Zimbabwean government's intransigence also stems from the fact that Pierre Schori headed an EU observer mission that concluded that Zimbabwe's 2000 parliamentary elections, which ZANU PF won by a narrow margin, were neither free nor fair. Whether the EU likes it or not, President Mugabe has a right to set the ground rules for foreign observer missions during the forthcoming election. Pierre Schori and the EU broke every rule in the election observers' handbook (See The Administration and Cost of Elections (ACE) Project, [www] http://www.aceproject.org [opens new window]), by clashing with the Zimbabwean government over this issue and should, therefore, shoulder the responsibility for the EU mission's ignominious exit from Zimbabwe.

The EU has created the impression that Zimbabwe's presidential election will not be free and fair unless it specifically says so. It has set itself up as the arbiter of free and fair elections. Yet foreign observer missions are riddled with double standards. They often arrive in a country with a biased election report that has been approved by their respective governments in advance. They have also been known to certify a country's election as free and fair, depending on whether the country in question is in, or out, of favour (Steele 2000).

The EU's unseemly fight with the Zimbabwean government will undoubtedly strengthen President Mugabe's resolve to remain in power at any cost. Unfortunately, it has distracted attention from the real issue, which revolves around the fact that local observers – who have a legitimate stake in Zimbabwe's future – have been banned from supervising the election and will have to defer to the government-appointed Electoral Supervisory Commission.

Reference

STEELE, J 2000, "Campaign Corruption", Guardian Unlimited, June 29, [www] http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4034804,00.html [opens new window].