afrol News - Zim candidates to verify results

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Zimbabwe
Politics | Society | Human rights
Zim candidates to verify results

afrol News, 29 April - Zimbabwe's four presidential candidates will soon be invited to witness verification and collation of the delayed results, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission [ZEC] revealed.

The commission said it has almost finished the recounting of results in 23 constituencies. A recount is believed to have shown little difference compared to the previous announced results.

According to ZEC Deputy Chief Elections Officer of Operations Utloile Silaigwana, the commission will invite the presidential candidates or their agents to witness the verification exercise before announcement of results. He said the results of the 23 constituencies will be made public upon completion.

The electoral commission Chairman Justice George Chiweshe had earlier said the "process of feeding the recounted statistics into our system," which had already began would finish by Monday. He said the Chief Elections Officer and the candidates had agreed that each party would collate its own figures. But this would not prevent the statistics from being compared at the end of the verification process.

Mr Chiweshe blamed several factors - including challenges of transport and communication and the recounting in the 23 constituencies - had hampered the announcement of the presidential results.

The commission had dismissed reports that some ballot boxes were tampered or found open.

Meanwhile, Zimbabwean police on Tuesday released about 250 activists of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. The activists were raided after a last week raid on the headquarters of the MDC.

They had since remained in custody. Their release was ordered by a Harare High Court on Monday.

The MDC cried four against incessant attacks on its members by the security forces and the ruling party thugs, resulting to the killing of close to 10 people. Its leadership had been operating outside the borders of Zimbabwe, throwing punches at the government for not respecting the constitution and the rights of its opponents.