Police in Zimbabwe revealed on Thursday that they had apprehended 41 workers associated with poll monitoring groups.
Furthermore, they confiscated the equipment, including computers, intended for tallying the vote count results.
The process of vote tabulation is currently underway following substantial delays in the southern African nation. These delays necessitated an extension of balloting up until Thursday night in numerous polling stations across the country.
The detained observers are affiliated with two officially recognized monitoring organisations – the Zimbabwe Elections Support Network and the Election Resource Center. These groups collectively deployed more than 7,500 observers throughout the nation.
Paul Nyathi, the police spokesperson, alleged that these workers were engaged in “subversive and criminal activities.” He further accused them of “coordinating the alleged release of election results by some civic organisations.”
The arrests took place during operations carried out at various locations, including a hotel. This move was met with criticism from the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights. The group argued that the detained workers were merely fulfilling their responsibilities as accredited election observers.
Charles Kwaramba, the spokesperson for the principal opposition party Citizens Coalition for Change, condemned the actions as an attempt to hinder observers from monitoring and revealing the actual truth about the election.
According to democracy expert Nick Cheeseman, these arrests are aimed at preventing the parallel counting of votes. This is seen as an effort to suppress the dissemination of what Cheeseman describes as “the clearest evidence to date that ZANU-PF thinks it has lost and has started to panic.”
Given Zimbabwe’s history of disputed elections, there exists a prevailing skepticism towards official election results.
A pre-election survey conducted by Afrobarometer, a notable research organisation, found that nearly half of the respondents expressed concerns that the announced results might not accurately reflect the actual counted results.