By AFP

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The United States on Thursday accused Zimbabwe's authorities of undermining their election by arresting poll monitors and demanded their release.

Police said they arrested 41 local election monitors, seizing their computers and mobile phones, in multiple raids as voting was extended for a second day due to problems at the polls.

"The police raid on civil society conducting legitimate election observation demonstrates the government of Zimbabwe's lack of respect for free and fair elections," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller wrote on Twitter, which has been rebranded X.

"Dismayed at the lengths they will go to undermine their own election's credibility," he said.

The US Agency for International Development, which has partnered with some civil society groups in Zimbabwe, said authorities were contradicting their own assurances of allowing observation of the election.

"We call on the government of Zimbabwe to urgently release all of these individuals, return their property and allow the work of election observers to continue unobstructed," USAid spokeswoman Jessica Jennings said in a statement.

Read: Zimbabwe’s new elections facing familiar old fears

"This is a worrying development for human rights in Zimbabwe, and it undermines democracy and respect for human rights," she said.

Opposition leader Nelson Chamisa, a 45-year-old who has vowed to tackle corruption, is seeking to end the unbroken rule since Zimbabwe's independence in 1980 of the Zanu-PF party.

The United States had imposed targeted sanctions over what rights groups say was a descent into authoritarianism and economic decline under Zimbabwe's first president, Robert Mugabe.

Hopes of a thaw briefly surfaced after Emmerson Mnangagwa pushed Mugabe out of power in 2017, but he is also accused of clamping down on opposition and protests.