The first team of election observers from the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) has arrived in Zimbabwe ahead of legislative and presidential polls on 29 March state media reported on Tuesday.

The government-run Herald newspaper said 50 election observers have arrived in the capital Harare and their numbers would be bolstered before polling day.

"We are here at the invitation of the Zimbabwean government, but more importantly we are here because Zimbabwe is a member state so we need to take ownership of these elections," Tanki Mothae, the director of Sadc's defence and security department, was quoted as saying by the daily.

Zimbabwe has invited 47 teams of monitors from regional groupings such as Sadc and the African Union as well as from countries including China, Russia and Iran with whom President Robert Mugabe enjoys relatively good relations.

Zimbabwe's Foreign Minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi announced last week that European Union member states and the United States — which both accused Mugabe of rigging his re-election in 2002 — had not been invited to monitor voting.

The National Constitutional Assembly, an alliance of rights group advocating for a new constitution for Zimbabwe, castigated the government for barring some countries from observing the polls.

"The elections should not be reduced to a birthday party where only friends are invited," the NCA said in a statement on Tuesday.

"This is a national election which should be open to scrutiny from diverse societies. It's the feeling of the NCA that such moves jeopardise the chances of the elections being legitimised by the international community.

"Traditional supporters of Zanu-PF (Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front) will obviously endorse the elections as free and fair just like in the past."

Mothae said that a preliminary Sadc mission had visited Zimbabwe last month.

"The preliminary team studied the number of and size of constituencies and their boundaries and the number of candidates contesting the elections, among other issues," he said.

"It was after that preliminary assessment that we were able to determine the number of the number of observers needed and wrote to member countries to nominate at least 10 observers because there are to many constituencies in this election."

AFP

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