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Muzinge Nampito-Chibombar Correspondent
THE Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) was created in 1994, mainly to promote regional integration through trade development for its member states. Over the years, its membership has expanded to 21 countries thus becoming the largest regional economic community in Africa.

During this period, different instruments have been created to facilitate trade development and deepen regional integration. The introduction of the Free Trade Area, Africa’s first FTA in the year 2000, was the launch pad for enhanced trade and 15 countries are now involved in the FTA with intra-Comesa trade levels currently at US$8 billion as of December 2016.

Aware that trade and investment can only thrive in a peaceful environment and in line with Article 3 of the Comesa Treaty, the Comesa Authority established the programme on Peace and Security which has contributed to the consolidation of democracy in its member states. Whereas most parts of the region have enjoyed peace and security, a few are still struggling to achieve full tranquillity. Internal strife triggered by various factors including political and governance issues have affected implementation of regional integration programmes in the affected regions.

To coordinate conflict prevention and peace building programmes, the Governance, Peace and Security (GPS) Unit of Comesa facilitates, among other things, activities related to preventive diplomacy and mediation, which includes the observation of elections. Its conflict prevention strategy involves the implementation of a robust early warning system known as COMWARN (Comesa Early Warning System).

In addition, Comesa has developed a robust preventive diplomacy framework to support early response. This involves the utilisation of eminent persons known as the Committee of Elders which was created in 2008 to augment the office of the Secretary- General on peacemaking assignments.

The committee assists in conflict prevention through track two diplomacy and as well as conflict prevention. Currently, there are nine Elders serving two five-year terms each. Elders are nominated to this committee by their governments. One of the main activities of the Committee of Elders is to lead election observer missions.

To observe elections, the organisation draws its mandate from one of its fundamental principles enshrined in Article 6(h) of the Comesa Treaty, which is on “… the promotion and sustenance of a democratic system of governance in each member state”. The observation missions are therefore done with the objective of supporting the consolidation of democracy in member states.

In 2018, Comesa has observed elections in two of its member states, namely the Presidential elections in the Arab Republic of Egypt in February and most recently the harmonised elections in Zimbabwe. Ms Hope Kivengere, an Elder from Uganda, led the team to Egypt while Ambassador Ashraf Gamaal Rashed, an Elder from Egypt, led the mission to Zimbabwe for the harmonised elections that took place at the end of July.

Other countries that Comesa has deployed election observers include Zambia, Kenya, Rwanda, Malawi, Swaziland, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Uganda, Madagascar and Mauritius

“We have been observing elections for more than 10 years since 2006 and we have so far observed over 20 elections in 13 member states,” Ambassador Ashraf told a media conference during the launch of the mission in Harare on July 27 2018.

Prior to this launch, Comesa conducted a pre-elections assessment mission from May 22-28, 2018. This provided an important opportunity to interact with various Zimbabwe electoral stakeholders in assessing their preparedness in ensuring that the requisite conditions for conducting credible and peaceful elections prevailed.

In their mission, Comesa teams observe various phases of the electoral cycle including campaigns, voting, vote counting and declaration of election results. To further enrich the report, Comesa observers conduct consultations with electoral stakeholders including political parties, security agencies, the national electoral bodies, civil society organisations, academia and the media. In addition, they exchange views with other election observer missions and the diplomatic community.

To prepare them for the task, the observers go through a three-day training which covers the terms of reference and role of Comesa in election observation, election observation instruments, principles and methodology, observation checklists containing opening, voting, closing and counting forms.

Experts and local stakeholders enlisted in the training to cover topics such as political and legal context of a particular country, assessments of the electoral process – perspectives from the media and civil society, state of preparedness, security situation in the country among others. Representatives from the ruling and opposition political parties are also invited to share their experiences during the campaign periods. Comesa staff brief the observers on responsibilities of the Comesa elections observation missions, the Code of Conduct, which every observer is required to sign and pledge before they can be deployed into the field.

While in their different observation regions across the respective country, observers are required to make hourly phone calls to the command centre in the capital city to provide updates on the development in the respective electoral areas of deployment. After voting takes place, observers travel back to the command centre in the capital and compile their findings into a preliminary report. This report is agreed on paragraph by paragraph and word for word so that every observer agrees with the findings.

A preliminary statement is then issued to the media while a detailed report is finalised and sent to the government and national electoral body within 90 days after the voting day. The observer mission does not have to wait until the results are announced before issuing the preliminary report. This report captures the key observations made that range from opening of polling centres, closing and counting procedures and issued a day after voting takes place.

The programme on election observation offers an opportunity for the organisation to interact and work with other organisations and so far, consultations, collaborations and joint missions have been held with the African Union (AU), the East African Community (EAC), the Southern African Development Community (Sadc), the Community of Sahel-Saharan States (Censad), the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and the Commonwealth.

Muzinge Nampito-Chibomba is a member of the Corporate Communications Unit, Comesa Secretariat.