Zimbabwe authorities briefly detain head of election monitoring group

HARARE, Zimbabwe (CNN) - Zimbabwe police on Tuesday briefly detained the head of an independent election monitoring group shortly after she arrived at Harare International Airport, a chairman for the group told CNN.

Police questioned Rindai Chipfunde-Vava about her Zimbabwe Election Support Network and its links to the U.S.-based National Democratic Institute, the network's chairman Noel Kututwa said.

Chipfunde-Vava, ZESN's national director and founder, was detained shortly after arriving in Harare from London, and was released a short time later, Kututwa said. Last week, Chipfunde-Vava attended the World Movement for Democracy Conference in Ukraine, he said.

ZESN is a group of non-governmental organizations that monitored Zimbabwe's March 29 elections. In lieu of any official results, ZESN released exit polling data that showed opposition candidate Morgan Tsvangirai leading with more than 49 percent of the vote - short of the 50 percent plus one vote needed to avoid a runoff election.