SADC observer mission

SADC observer mission Failing the People of SADC

While the SADC observer mission in Zimbabwe has called Saturday’s elections a “peaceful and credible expression of the will of the people,” one observer with the group strongly rejects that assessment.

Dianne Kohler Barnard is a South African member of parliament belonging to the opposition Democratic Alliance Party. From Harare, she spoke to VOA English to Africa Service reporter Joe De Capua about her views on the presidential and parliamentary elections.

“My mandate here as a member of SADC was not to declare which party won the election, but whether the process was free and fair. And frankly it was neither. Of the 13 tenants contained in the SADC guidelines only two seem to be in compliance and the rest were being blatantly flouted. So, I failed to understand how the SADC report says the elections were ‘a credible expression of the will of the people.’
http://danielmolokele.blogspot.com/2008/03/some-sadc-observers-reject-official.html

I feel this group of people are more interested in legitimizing illegal governments and enjoy the allowances that they are offered for traveling to election countries. We have been robbed of credible observers who are not interested in benefits but in ensuring the will of the people, no matter how small the person is, is taken into consideration. We are not interested in hearing stories like babies. I remember this group failing the people of Zimbabwe and now Zambia. Do we need such nonsense to continue? Honestly you issue that elections where free and fair, even before some results are announced as people where voting 2 days later than everyone else and that was kept as a secret from all? When the number of voters are different from those who registered and you don't question how that can be? Is it the mandate of the observers to leave troubles to escalate and turn into civil war for them to see that things are not worth while?

Is SADC so toothless that it can't setup certain guidelines on all governance issues to ensure governments in the whole of SADC behave and produce desirable results? Is it impossible to setup real yard sticks that governments should reach as a region for free and fair elections? Does the SADC serve the people of SADC or the governments that rule them? We seriously have to measure the value that the bring if they can't scrutinize the simplest election activities and get their allowances. I feel an election with toothless observers is as good as one without, or one with primary school children playing on the swings.

Africa is doomed forever with the type of activities that we see in our regional groupings