Eight days before the election, the leader of South Africa's main opposition party has offered his support to the MDC Alliance.
Mmusi Maimane of the Democratic Alliance said he had not yet met alliance leader Nelson Chamisa, who took over after Morgan Tsvangirai's death in February, but had spoken to several of his lieutenants and offered his support.
"We certainly stand with the opposition and hope that the election will produce a credible outcome," Maimane told the Sunday Times, adding that he hoped to observe the poll either as a member of the Southern African Development Community mission or independently. A source at the South African embassy in Harare said yesterday the South African members of the mission had not yet arrived.
Maimane said his party was ready to provide the MDC with assistance on legal, policy and media issues, saying this was an extension of an open offer to Tsvangirai.
"These are conversations I also used to have with Tsvangirai, to say, 'How can we help the people of Zimbabwe and have the economy working again?'"
Maimane's greatest concern in the run-up to the election was violence. "An unstable Zimbabwe is unstable for SADC and also for South Africa," he said.
Pre-election tension has focused on relations between the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission and the MDC Alliance, which demonstrated at the commission's offices a fortnight ago, accusing it of being "a bad referee". The MDC-T youth league, led by Happymore Chidziva, is expected to picket outside the commission's offices from Tuesday.
The MDC Alliance says it has been denied access to the voters roll and barred from monitoring the printing of ballot papers.Under the Electoral Act, ballot papers must be made public tomorrow, and ZEC chairwoman Priscilla Chigumba has promised to say how many ballot papers have been printed for the presidential, parliamentary and local government polls.
Chamisa said the alliance had sought SADC's assistance in resolving its concerns and the SADC chairman, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, had responded that the matter was under consideration.
"Time is of the essence. We are just days before the election and most of the changes that we would want to see are not very difficult to implement," said Chamisa.
"These are political-will issues, these are administrative issues of the storage and distribution of the ballots, so that we are all agreed on the process."
SADC's observer mission started work yesterday, joining missions from the African Union and European Union.
Former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan is also in the country as leader of The Elders, and had separate meetings on Friday with Chamisa and Zanu-PF leader President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
After meeting Annan, Mnangagwa said any of the 55 political parties contesting the presidential election had the right to appeal to the courts if they had any grievances with the electoral commission.
"Government has no role or influence at ZEC at all," he said. "Those who feel that ZEC has not complied with the constitution or the law, the courts are open."
At a media briefing yesterday, Annan urged political leaders "to watch the language" they used, even if there were disagreements.
"Every voter must go and vote to express their views and not sit back and complain after the elections," he said. "It is important that Zimbabweans focus more on the political programmes that parties are offering than personalities. Politicians must be careful not to incite the people."An Afrobarometer poll, which gave Zanu-PF 40% support and the MDC Alliance 37%, points to a run-off election for the second time in a decade.
In 2008, when election results were delayed by a month, Tsvangirai pulled out of a run-off with Robert Mugabe in protest at a military crackdown in which dozens of MDC supporters were killed.
Political observers said if the vote went to a September 8 run-off, tensions between Zanu-PF and the MDC Alliance were likely to escalate.
Piers Pigou, Southern Africa director for the International Crisis Group, said a run-off would be a critical test of the election monitors.
"It is unclear what capacity either of these [AU and SADC] teams really has. This election requires a very close assessment of their role and the other missions," said Pigou.
Tara O'Connor, director of Africa Risk Consulting in London, said Mnangagwa's "personal charisma and clear reform agenda" had diluted the pro-opposition sentiment that swept Zimbabwe after Mugabe's fall in November last year.
"But Zimbabweans have developed a taste for change, and this appetite may become insatiable if elections go to a second round," she said.
The Afrobarometer survey of 2,400 voting-age adults, conducted between June 25 and July 6, found that nearly 90% of the 5.6-million registered voters intended to go to the polls.
"By early July the race for the presidency had tightened," Afrobarometer said.
"Depending on how undeclared voters [20%] ultimately decide to vote, either party has a chance to win the presidential election on the first round."
The research organisations said many Zimbabweans feared the election would not end well, expressing concerns that the wrong results would be announced, that the armed forces would not respect the result, and that post-election violence would occur.
"Perhaps reflecting these concerns, Zimbabweans as a whole - regardless of whether they planned to vote or which candidate they preferred to vote for - still considered Zanu-PF the more likely winner in the race for the presidency."..