One of Botswana's representatives in the forum, Phillip Khwae, told The Monitor from Harare by telephone that peace and stability is prevailing in the Zimbabwean capital. The Kgalagadi South Member of Parliament (MP) said they moved around the capital city and nearby villages but observed that peace and order was prevailing. "We visited three rallies addressed by the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T) and other three addressed by Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) but all was stable. We even checked police stations for politically-motivated cases but found none," Khwae said.
He added that the SADC-PF also visited provincial polling centres and found nothing amiss. He said the Zimbabwean Electoral Commission (ZEC) seemed to be on top of the game as it had already started distributing voting materials. Meanwhile, another Botswana MP in the SADC-PF team, Fidelis Molao, who is based in rural Masvingo, cited some problems in the countryside. He told The Monitor that they had received complaints of intimidation from some voters. He said some people were complaining that certain village leaders were forcing people to attend ZANU-PF rallies. "These people say chiefs warn them to attend these political rallies to avoid what happened in 2008," Molao said. However, he was satisfied with the preparations saying that all systems seemed ready with the ZEC distributing ballot boxes and other materials for the harmonised elections.
