Zimbabwe Parties Can’t Agree on Election Security, Monitors, Herald Says

Zimbabwe’s three main political parties can’t agree on changes to the security forces or the composition of an independent commission to oversee elections, the Herald reported, citing minutes from a meeting held this week.

The parties also failed to agree on outstanding issues such as “state-sponsored violence” and the deployment of soldiers in Zimbabwe’s rural areas, the Harare-based state-controlled newspaper said on its website.

President Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union- Patriotic Front refused a Movement for Democratic Change demand that foreign election monitors be deployed for six months before and after the election, the Herald said.

The parties, in talks on conditions that must be in place for elections to be held, agreed that Mugabe can’t announce an election date before consulting Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the MDC and prime minister in the country’s power-sharing government, it said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Brian Latham in Johannesburg at blatham@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Antony Sguazzin at asguazzin@bloomberg.net