From Aljazeer

Police deployed in potential election flashpoints ahead of election showdown between President Mugabe and PM Tsvangirai.

Heavily armed riot police have been deployed in potential election flashpoints in Zimbabwe on the eve of a poll showdown between President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai that remains too close to call.

State radio said thousands of officers had been sent to the central Midlands province on Tuesday, while trucks of police carrying automatic rifles and grenade launchers patrolled in the restive Harare townships of Highfield and Mbare.

The run-down districts of the capital are hotbeds of support for Tsvangirai and were at the centre of several weeks of post-election violence in 2008, in which 200 people linked to his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) were killed.

This year’s presidential and parliamentary elections have been marked by allegations of threats and intimidation by security forces, but there have been no reports of violence.

About 6.4 million people are eligible to cast their ballots in the first round of presidential and parliamentary elections.

With no reliable opinion polls, it is hard to tell whether 61-year-old Tsvangirai will succeed in his third attempt to unseat his 89-year-old rival, who has run the southern African nation since independence from Britain in 1980.

Voter irregularities

Both the MDC and Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party predict landslide victories. However, it is possible neither leading candidate will emerge an outright winner, triggering a September 11 run-off.

Mugabe’s rivals have submitted what they claim is evidence of his plans to rig the vote to regional election observers.

Allies of Tsvangirai presented a sample list of about125 duplicate or questionable voters on the electoral roll to observers from the Southern African Development Community.

Given the irregularities and problems that have dogged the election process, including failure to publish an electronic voters’ roll, the result is highly likely to be contested, raising the prospect of another long political stalemate.

In 2008, South Africa and other countries in the region negotiated a unity government between Mugabe and Tsvangirai to break a deadlock caused by the MDC’s withdrawal from a second-round runoff because of the violence and killings.

Western election observers have been barred, leaving the task of independent oversight to 500 regional and 7,000 domestic monitors. The final results must be released within five days, but may come sooner.

For more on this story go to:

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2013/07/2013730131753858363.html

Related story:

Zimbabwe to tap into US$38bn aid for development

From The Standard

ZIMBABWE is set to tap into the US$38 billion aid for development cooperation fund set by the European Union (EU) for African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states, a result of the country’s re-engagement with the trading bloc.

Finance minister, Tendai Biti last week said as part of the on-going re-engagement with the EU, government and the European Delegation to Zimbabwe are in the process of jointly programming for the 11th European Development Fund (EDF) set to benefit ACP states.

“The first phase was completed in October 2012 whereby a draft country strategy paper and proposed areas of cooperation for the 11th EDF were submitted to the EU,” Biti said in his mid-term fiscal policy review statement.

He said individual country allocations are yet to be finalised confident that Zimbabwe would benefit from the facility.

Zimbabwe missed the previous two facilities due to the country’s sour relations with the EU bloc.

EDF usually runs for six years and the 11th EDF facility begins next year up to 2020.

Other than ACP countries, the EDF also caters for overseas countries and territories. EDF covers economic, social and human development, and regional cooperation and integration.

Zimbabwe built bridges with the EU following the formation of the inclusive government in 2009.

As a result, EU assistance to the country increased and to date the EU and its member states have provided US$1 billion in development assistance to Zimbabwe in the areas of food security and agriculture, social sectors and the promotion of governance.

For more on this story go to:

http://www.thestandard.co.zw/2013/07/28/zim-to-tap-into-us38bn-aid-for-development/