Southern African Development Community sent 70 observers on this day to Zimbabwe to observe the presidential elections. The team would return in the following month. The same elections were monitored by South Africa.
On this day in 2008, the SADC Organ of Defence and Security held a meeting to discuss how to overcome the Zimbabwean political crisis. The meeting failed to break the political impasse but announced that it was calling for a summit of all SADC member states to try and resolve the Zimbabwe crisis. These events followed after the violent characterized 2008 general elections and political talks in Zimbabwe which were failing at the time.