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Zimbabwe has officially applied to rejoin the Commonwealth 15 years after it quit the organisation of former British colonies. Harare’s application is the latest step aimed at reversing the country’s long isolation during the rule of Robert Mugabe.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who assumed power after Mr Mugabe was deposed in an army takeover last year, made the bid for a return to the Commonwealth last week, Patricia Scotland, secretary-general of the group of 53 nations, said on Monday.
“Zimbabwe’s eventual return to the Commonwealth, following a successful membership application, would be a momentous occasion, given our shared rich history,” Baroness Scotland said.
The application comes less than two months before Zimbabwe is expected to hold its first elections without Mr Mugabe. Mr Mnangagwa, formerly a staunch ally of Mr Mugabe who served as deputy president, is pursuing a rapprochement with the UK government in particular. Britain has said it would support Zimbabwe rejoining the Commonwealth if fair elections were held.
Baroness Scotland said the Commonwealth had accepted an invitation from Mr Mnangagwa to monitor the poll, which pits his ruling Zanu-PF against the MDC Alliance, an opposition coalition. An official date is yet to be set for the election, though Mr Mnangagwa said at the weekend that it would be held in July. Baroness Scotland added that reports from Commonwealth monitors would form part of whether the organisation would accept Zimbabwe’s application to rejoin.
Zimbabwe left the Commonwealth in 2003, after the organisation indefinitely suspended its membership in protest at violent repression of the opposition around a 2002 poll.
Zanu-PF has a long history of ballot rigging, and western election observers were barred in the last years of Mr Mugabe’s presidency.
The 94-year-old Mr Mugabe ruled with an iron grip from independence in 1980 until last year’s palace coup, which army commanders launched to stop his wife Grace from succeeding him. Mr Mnangagwa has promised free and fair elections and also invited EU election monitors into the country.
Nic Cheeseman, a professor of democracy at the University of Birmingham and co-author of a recent book on election-rigging practices worldwide, warned that there was not much time ahead of polling day to observe effectively the poll and expose any manipulation.
“Effective election observation would have had to begin a couple of months ago — at the latest,” Prof Cheeseman said.
“This is not to say that sending observers will not be worth it — there is still good that can come of having people on the ground. But we need to be upfront that any team deployed at this stage will have missed much about how the election is controlled.”
Analysts say that compared with previous elections, there are signs that the opposition has had greater freedom to hold rallies and that voters have been able to declare their political allegiance. But they warn that the media remains dominated by state mouthpieces and that the army is yet to say whether it would accept an opposition victory.
