EU agrees to send election monitorsto Zimbabwe

Emmerson Mnangagwa arrives to be sworn in as Zimbabwe's president in Harare, Zimbabwe, November 24, 2017. REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko

The Zimbabwe’s general election in August may not be business as usual as the European Union (EU) has accepted to send election monitors to the country.

The EU said it will send a delegation to monitor Zimbabwe’s general elections for the first time in 16 years as relations between the southern African nation and Western countries continue to improve.

Zimbabwe is required by its constitution to hold general and presidential elections by August 22.

The vote will be the first without Robert Mugabe, who stepped down as the nation’s leader in November, since 1980.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa, the 75-year-old former intelligence chief who replaced Mugabe, has been nominated by the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front as its presidential candidate.

Five elections between 2000 and 2013 were marred by allegations of rigging, violence and intimidation, with Western nations accusing Mugabe of human-rights abuses and manipulating the vote. The EU has been blocked from observing polls since after the 2002 vote.
The EU’s observer team will be “a significant additional support to Zimbabwe’s democratisation process,” the bloc said in an emailed statement on Friday.
.Source: Bloomberg
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