Only regional and African organisations were accredited as international observers. The most prominent missions were those from SADC, SADC Parliamentary Forum and African Union. Diplomatic missions to Zimbabwe were invited to accredit observers, and a group of them including the EU Mission and EU member countries, the US, Australia, Switzerland and Norway formed a so-called diplomatic watch exchanging information and deployment plans, without being a formal observation mission. 10.3 JOMIC The Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee (JOMIC) was established by the GPA in 2008 as a tool for reconciliation and for creating an environment conducive for future elections. SADC put a lot of emphasis on its role. The Zimbabwe Institute, an independent political think tank implementing a number of projects in Zimbabwe, helped setting up its administration and coordinated the donor support. JOMIC had four members from each of the three main parties including the senior negotiators. After a slow start, the political party liaison teams centrally and at province level worked well from the spring of 2011. In 2013 the capacity was expanded to two teams per province, which were to be operational during the 2013 elections. The members emphasised the value of representatives from all three parties delivering the same message of non-violence. They worked with the local authorities and with the police, and they took an independent position when the police was part of the problem. The SADC summit at Sandton on 11 and 12 June 2011 decided to second three SADC troika representatives to JOMIC. They were able to take up their work only around the time of the 2013 referendum. On 12 June 2013, JOMIC decided to increase their capacity considerably during the elections. They proposed to have one stationary JOMIC-team inside every polling station with observer accreditation. The donors were not convinced that this would be feasible, both from a practical point of view and from a division of labour point of view. Would the parties be able to recruit and train almost 30,000 team members that close to the elections? And would the new role of JOMIC teams be helpful in addition to observers and party agents? Observing elections requires skills different from conflict monitoring and mediation. The ZEC raised formal objections. Observers were supposed to be non-partisan, not multi partisan as the case was with JOMIC. ZEC agreed in the end to accredit 1500 JOMIC-monitors who would be allowed into the polling stations, whereas the rest of the teams would have to remain outside. JOMIC defined a methodology for their teams which would be different from observers and party agents. They were to assess in particular: -- The free access of voters, and accredited observers, party agents and media to the polling stations and the area around them. -- Whether unauthorised persons were allowed inside the polling station, as far as can be established from outside. 32 -- Whether persons of authority (mayors, chiefs, employers, etc.) were present in the area, misusing their authority to influence or intimidate voters. -- Whether there was any sign of violence in the area. -- Whether there were any campaign posters or campaign material within the area prescribed by law to be free from such material. -- Whether there were any campaign activities going on within the observed area. Campaign activities were forbidden regardless of location on election day, whereas posters etc. were forbidden within 200 m of the polling station. Some violations were to be reported to the JOMIC-teams by party agents or observers with access to polling stations and could only be verified by entering the station. In such cases the stationary team would call on a mobile team, which were accredited and therefore could enter the polling station to assess the situation. In their public notice on 29 July 2013 JOMIC gave a presentation of their operation: “JOMIC advises that it will deploy observers and political environment monitors for the harmonised elections on 31 July 2013. These teams will operate at two levels: 1. JOMIC observers. JOMIC will deploy 1 503 election observers who have been accredited by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission. This team will be identified by their ZEC accreditation cards and reflective bibs clearly inscribed “JOMIC Election Observer” and they will operate at district and constituency level. They will observe the entire process from voting to the counting of ballot papers. 2. JOMIC monitors. JOMIC monitors will be putting on JOMIC T-shirts and reflective bibs. Their role is to monitor the general political environment as provided for under the Global Political Agreement. They will operate outside the polling station.” JOMIC did not have teams outside every polling station but they tried to cover every location where there were polling stations. 11 The Election Day 11.1 A General Assessment Formal and informal observers had very different assessments of the 31 July elections. The observer missions from SADC and AU had critical comments but they concluded that the elections were generally credible. The head of the SADC Election Observation Mission concluded in his statement of 2 August, after having listed problems with media, voter registration, etc.: 33