APA-Harare (Zimbabwe) Zimbabwean police on Thursday arrested 39 local election monitors for allegedly interfering with the electoral process.
Police spokesperson Paul Nyathi said the arrests took place at several locations in the capital Harare.
“The Zimbabwe Republic Police confirms that a raid was conducted last night at a hotel in Harare, a location in Belgravia, in Milton Park and also in the Grange area where several communication gadgets were recovered, which include laptops, smartphones, ordinary phones, called kambudzi, modems and in the process,” Nyathi said.
He added: “39 suspects have been arrested by the police.”
The 39 are accused of coordinating the alleged release of election results by civic organisations linked to the Election Resource Centre (ERC) and the Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN).
Some of the places raised were the ERC and ZESN offices.
The civil society groups are coordinating an independent count of election results to pre-empt any attempts by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission and the governing ZANU PF to doctor the outcome of Wednesday’s general election.
Previous Zimbabwe elections have been marred by allegations of result manipulation, a development has seen the country’s poll results being contested since 2000.
JN/APA