African Union Says Zimbabwe Elections Are a Reflection of the People's Will

African Union observer mission to Zimbabwe was headed by former Federal Republic of Nigeria military leader and president Olusegun Obasanjo and Dr. Aisha Abdullahi of the AU political affairs commsions. They endorsed the elections as free and fair., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

Zim poll, a reflection of the people’s will:AU

August 2, 2013
Herald Reporter

The challenges that were faced during the just ended harmonised elections did not hinder Zimbabweans to freely express their will, Head of the AU Observer Mission General Olusegun Obasanjo has said.
Gen Obasanjo said this during the presentation of the mission’s preliminary report of the elections.

“I have never seen an election that is perfect. The point has always been and will always be, how much the infractions, imperfections have affected the reflection of the will of the people and up to the point of the close of the polls our observation was that there were incidences that could have been avoided.

“There are incidences that tended to have breached the law. In fact up to the close of the polls we do not believe that those incidences will amount to the result not to reflect the will of the people,” he said.

Gen Obasanjo said while the credibility of the polls would be announced in the final report to be released within a month the observer mission had noted that people who wanted to vote had been given the opportunity to do so freely and without intimidation.

He said it was premature to determine the number of people that had been turned away but said some people did not know the requirements to enable them to vote.

“Some people were prevented from voting but we have to note how legitimate they were. Where they people who were eligible to vote? Because we found out that some people thought that when they had an ID that was enough to vote.

“But we were made to understand that IDs belonged to everyone and that you must also have registered to be allowed to vote,” Gen Obasanjo said.

The AU have been in the country since June 15 when a nine member long term observer mission arrived in the country and commended Zimbabwe for the peaceful manner it conducted its election preparations.