ERC said the training of election agents was not its
mandate.
Zanu PF finance boss, Patrick Chinamasa, released a
statement last week saying the ruling party had gathered that ERC and the
Zimbabwe Election Support Network (Zesn) had received foreign funding to train
election agents.
The money is said to have come from the United Kingdom,
France, Australia, USAid, Sweden, the United States embassy in Harare, US-based
National Democratic Institute and the European Union.
“Unfortunately, this
statement from Zanu PF is not true with regards to ERC. As ERC we, therefore,
put it on record that we are neither aware of the donation nor are we part of
such a programme as alleged by Zanu PF,” ERC said in a statement.
“As a law-abiding entity, we continue striving for
electoral excellence, our mission as ERC is to provide credible information,
strategic services and deliberative platforms that aim to improve the quality
of democracy and elections at all tiers of Zimbabwean society and Africa at
large.
“The ERC is a think-tank and advocacy organisation on
electoral and democracy issues in Africa, having been formed following the need
to deepen electoral research work in Africa that would inform effective citizen
participation as well as strengthen policy engagement towards improvement of
the quality of electoral and democratic practices."
Zesn last week also dismissed the same claims.
“Zesn reiterates that it does not and will not finance and
or train any political party agents as this is not part of its core business
and mandate, neither does Zesn support or endorse any political party or
candidate in Zimbabwe,” said Zesn.
“The network’s mandate is to promote democratic elections
in Zimbabwe through domestic oversight on all electoral processes such as voter
registration, nomination, pre- and post-electoral environment and polling day
processes among others.” Newsday
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