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Thabo Mbeki

Fidelis Munyoro Chief Court Reporter
South Africa’s former President Thabo Mbeki has said the 2002 Zimbabwean presidential elections were free and fair and dismissed claims that he connived to subvert democracy in Zimbabwe. A controversial report by South African judges Dikgang Moseneke and Sisi Khampepe made public recently after a six-year legal battle by South African based Mail and Guardian newspaper, claimed the elections were not credible.

Mbeki said the South African government sent two missions to observe the 2002 presidential elections.

One of these was a multi-party South African Parliamentary Observer Mission (SAPOM), constituted and deployed by Parliament without any intervention by the South African government, while the other was the South African Observer Mission (SAOM), the larger of the two, sent by the South African government and consisted of 50 members of civil society.

This was led by Ambassador Sam Motsuenyane.

“The South African government did not pluck its views about the outcome of these elections out of thin air,” said Mbeki in a letter published in the Mail & Guardian newspaper yesterday.

“These missions had comprehensive mandates to observe all elements of the elections consistent with universal practice.”

The letter comes after the public release of the Khampepe report, which found the elections could not be considered to be free, fair and credible.