INDEPENDENT election watchdog, Election Resource Centre (ERC), has refuted Zanu PF claims that it received foreign funding from the West to train election agents. ERC said the training of election agents was not its mandate.
Zanu PF finance boss, Patrick Chinamasa, released a statement last week saying the ruling party had gathered that ERC and the Zimbabwe Election Support Network (Zesn) had received foreign funding to train election agents.
The money is said to have come from the United Kingdom, France, Australia, USAid, Sweden, the United States embassy in Harare, US-based National Democratic Institute and the European Union.
“Unfortunately, this statement from Zanu PF is not true with regards to ERC. As ERC we, therefore, put it on record that we are neither aware of the donation nor are we part of such a programme as alleged by Zanu PF,” ERC said in a statement.
“As a law-abiding entity, we continue striving for electoral excellence, our mission as ERC is to provide credible information, strategic services and deliberative platforms that aim to improve the quality of democracy and elections at all tiers of Zimbabwean society and Africa at large.
“The ERC is a think-tank and advocacy organisation on electoral and democracy issues in Africa, having been formed following the need to deepen electoral research work in Africa that would inform effective citizen participation as well as strengthen policy engagement towards improvement of the quality of electoral and democratic practices.”
Zesn last week also dismissed the same claims.
“Zesn reiterates that it does not and will not finance and or train any political party agents as this is not part of its core business and mandate, neither does Zesn support or endorse any political party or candidate in Zimbabwe,” said Zesn.
“The network’s mandate is to promote democratic elections in Zimbabwe through domestic oversight on all electoral processes such as voter registration, nomination, pre- and post-electoral environment and polling day processes among others.”
Source Newsday
