What role for poll observers?

The Commonwealth has sent a team of 44 observers

Zimbabwe's elections will be attended by at least 100 international observers - but there are still serious concerns about how effective the work of the observer contingent can be.

In the past three weeks the government has placed conditions and restrictions on the work of foreign observers, which some organisations believe has seriously compromised their ability to do an effective job.

If there is a polling station on farmland, of course we will be meeting with voters

Abulsalami Abubakar

However, other bodies say they are satisfied that they will be able to carry out the task of observing the elections as planned.

A spokesman for the Commonwealth observer mission, Mwambu Wanendenya, emphasised the difference between observers and monitors: while monitors may intervene to prevent electoral malpractice, observers can only note what happens and report back after the event.

Zimbabwe is admitting observers to its election, but not monitors.

No official standing

By the time the reports have been compiled, the official election results will almost certainly have been declared - and the various observer bodies will be in no position to call for a re-count.

The reports are intended primarily for the use of the various organisations that have commissioned them. These include:

• the Commonwealth
• the Organisation of African Unity
• the Southern African Development Community
• the European Union
• the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa
• the South African parliament
• the Norwegian Government.

Hunzvi: Observers may be seen but not heard

The only observer body which has any official standing with the Zimbabwe Government is the Electoral Supervisory Committee of Zimbabwe - although a government body, its powers have been reduced recently and its members serve on a voluntary, unpaid basis.

The United Nations was to have co-ordinated the efforts of the various observer teams - but when the Zimbabwe Government rejected it playing this role, the UN decided to halt its observer activities altogether, saying there was no purpose in working amid restrictions.

There is therefore no official co-ordination of the observers' activities - though Mr Wanendenya said the different groups would be co-operating informally to avoid duplication of personnel at the same place.

Accreditation fee

In a move which has further rankled the observers, the government has for the first time introduced an accreditation fee of $100 per individual.

The US-based National Democratic Institute has experienced difficulties in gaining accreditation - apparently because of a recent statement declaring that Zimabwe was not ready to hold free and fair elections.

Observers are determined to do their work on the occupied farms

Then there is the question of access. Zimbabwe has been experiencing widespread political violence and intimidation since long before the election date was even announced. It is therefore particularly important that observers gauge the temperature in communities around the country, rather than simply noting events at the polling stations.

But comments by Chenjerai Hunzvi - the leader of the Zimbabwe National War Veterans' Association, which is co-ordinating the occupation of white-owned land - have indicated that observers would not be welcome on the farms "if their observations were negative".

Later, Mr Hunzvi said that observers could go onto the farms, provided they did not speak to workers.

Observer organisations have said they will be talking to workers regardless of what threats might be made.

Not deterred

"Our job is to go and observe," said former Nigerian President Abdulsalami Abubakar, who heads the Commonwealth Observer Group.

"If there is a polling station on farmland, of course we will be meeting with voters," Mr Abubakar said. "I don't expect violence and danger."

Steve Collins, spokesman for the SADC Electoral Commissions Forum, says the latest restrictions are "not encouraging" - but believes the rules will not deter the observers from going onto the farms and speaking to the public, as they have already begun to do without any problems.

Mr Collins is also concerned that Zimbabwe is admitting only observers, rather than monitors who can play an interventionist role. But he believes nevertheless that the very presence of monitors can help stop electoral malpractice.

"Being in the field is an intervention in itself," he says.