Harare - Southern African regional bloc SADC said it was too early to declare Zimbabwe's disputed election fair on Friday, but noted the vote was free and passed off without violence.
“We have said this election is free, indeed very free,” said SADC's top election observer Bernard Membe.
“We did not say it was fair... we didn't want to jump to a conclusion at this point in time,” amid deeply divergent accounts of voting.
President Robert Mugabe's allies have claimed a landslide victory in the polls, which has been dismissed by rival Morgan Tsvangirai as a “sham”.
The African Union has declared the poll free and fair, but independent observers have reported a litany of problems, including around one million voters being turned away.
With 600 observers on the ground, the verdict of the 15-member bloc will be closely watched by western nations barred from monitoring the poll themselves.
SADC negotiated the creation of a power-sharing government in the wake of 2008's bloody poll.
With the spectre of fresh unrest hanging over the crisis-wracked nation, SADC called on all parties to accept the result.
“In democracy we not only vote, not only campaign, but accept the hard facts, particularly the outcome,” said Membe, who is also Tanzania's foreign minister. - AFP
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