The Southern African Liaison Office

The Southern African Liaison Office

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SALO and CiZC Webinar Improving the integrity of Zimbabwe’s 2023 election: Can the situation be salvaged? -20 June 2023

SALO

On 31 May, the President of Zimbabwe Emmerson Mnangagwa finally made a proclamation on the date for the much-anticipated elections in Zimbabwe, which are going to be held on 23 August. Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition (CiZC) and the Southern African Liaison Office (SALO) delved into this issue with a view to bringing the dynamics attendant to the proclamation of the election date with efforts towards improving the integrity of the elections.

The proclamation of the election date essentially means that changes to any legislation affecting elections will have no effect on the impending August 23 election and Zimbabwe will likely go into these elections under a framework more skewed than what we saw in 2018. This is being exacerbated by what has been an appetite by the government to further shrink the civic and democratic space through both legal and extra-legal means.

The worsening economic climate also puts an interesting twist on the whole situation. This discussion came before the SADC Elections Advisory Committee (SEAC) which was in Zimbabwe in April 2023 presents its findings to the SADC Council of Ministers in June 2023; the Council of Ministers meeting is a precursor to the SADC Heads of State and Government Summit.

The discussion, among other important aspects, touched on the following:

The state of election preparedness – the electoral management body (EBM); elections legislation; code of conduct for electoral stakeholders – as benchmarked against the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance and the SADC Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections. The status of efforts towards reform – a look at Parliamentary processes; takeaways from 2018 SADC Elections Observer Mission and the Motlanthe Commission recommendations from 2018; civil society advocacy and lobby; the AfDB’s Structured Dialogue Platform.Citizen agency – autonomous citizen efforts towards improving electoral integrity, including lessons from Zambia.

Watch full meeting here: https://fb.watch/luz6LtA-44/