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By Pejman Yousefzadeh Posted in Begone I Say And Let Us Have Done With You | Contra Tyrannum | Robert Mugabe | Zimbabwe — Comments (1) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

For those who still harbor hope that the upcoming runoff elections for the presidency of Zimbabwe will be free and fair, I give you this:

Robert Mugabe's government on Thursday slashed the number of accredited Zimbabwean election observers, further heightening fears that the result of next week's run-off presidential poll will be manipulated.

During the first round in March, the 8,800 independent monitors from the Zimbabwe Election Support Network collated information posted outside the more than 9,000 polling stations - a process which, according to Noel Kututwa, its chairman, was "critical" in curbing distortions to the final tally.

On Thursday the network was informed that, of the 23,000 names it submitted to the Ministry of Justice for accreditation to monitor the run-off on June 27, a mere 500 had been approved.

Mr Kututwa told the Financial Times the reason given was that the presence of observers "disrupts the smooth flow of voting".

"The idea is to make it impossible to do what we did [in the first round]," he said. "It will be very difficult but not impossible."

The news came as Bernard Membe, Tanzania's foreign minister, warned "there is every sign these elections will never be free nor fair".

For those of you who are disappointed, I don't blame you. But if you are surprised, then you qualify as being shockingly naïve.