Mugabe names Rights, election appointments

from Reuters via the Washington Post

,,,Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe Wednesday swore-in members of a Human Rights and an Electoral Commission, expected to steer reforms toward free and fair elections. ...

The MDC was formed in 1999 and has come closest to ending Mugabe's grip on power, but the party says Mugabe's ZANU-PF has rigged elections and used violence against its supporters.

An official list seen by Reuters showed the Electoral Commission would be headed by Simpson Mutambanengwe, a former Zimbabwean Supreme Court judge who was serving as acting Chief Justice in the Namibian Supreme Court.

Mugabe also swore-in members of the Human Rights Commission, the first body tasked with investigating cases of rights abuses.

Reg Austin, a law professor and former Commonwealth secretariat's head of legal and constitutional affairs division, will chair the rights body.