The UN has promised to help fund Zimbabwe’s upcoming elections but on condition that a UN needs-assessment team is allowed to meet government officials and NGOs. Mugabe has said no to the team meeting the latter.
Denmark is the only country that has offered to pay for the elections, not that the country needed this help, according to Finance Minister Tendai Biti.
Minister Biti said if there was honesty in diamond revenues, Zimbabwe should not even be asking for election funds from outsiders. He said Zimbabwe’s diamond exports should have brought in US$800 million last year but Treasury only got $45 million.
We all know the reason why Mugabe does not want anyone in the West or the UN to have look-in in the electoral process is because Zimbabweans will once again by systematically denied a meaningful democratic say in to the governance of the country.
Mugabe has yet to hold a
free and fair elections after 33 years and already there is overwhelming
evidence the coming elections will not be any different including the refusal
to implement meaningful democratic reforms and the withholding of billions of
dollars of diamonds revenue.
Even if the UN was allowed
to meet all local NGOs; does anyone really think that will stop the Police and
the Judiciary acting in their usual partisan manner, will have all the Zanu PF
thugs like Jabulani Sibanda and Chipango rounded up and thrown in jail, will end
Zanu Pf control of the public media, etc., etc.? Anyone, that is other than Prime
Minister Tsvangirai who, having failed to get the reforms implemented in four
and half years when he had the support of SADC and the world at large, now
expects to accomplish the task in as many weeks. And for backup, he is counting
on presence of outside election observers delivering free and fair elections. This
is the hopeless politics of despair of PM Tsvangirai, like a drowning man,
limply clutching on straws when a vigorous use of the hands and feet could save
his life.
What is really disappointing here is how some countries like Denmark and institutions like the UN are ignoring all this evidence and working with the tyrant, giving him and his devilish electoral schemes legitimacy. And the same token they are also giving failed leaders like Tsvangirai encouragement that his hare-brain foolishness could still deliver free and fair elections regardless of the now entrenched Zanu PF dictatorship!
The people of Zimbabwe want and need friends but friends who going to help them get out of this political and economic mess. The last thing they want is some rich fiends throwing their money around which only serves to keep them in the mess!
3 comments:
Ncube said the $132 million needed to fund this year’s elections is “nothing compared to the money which is being stolen out of the Chiadzwa diamond fields.”
Yes Professor but have you done about it all these last five years? Nothing! All you have ever done is complain that it should be you and not Mutambara who should be playing the role of the third amigo in this political circus!
In 2008 the people of Zimbabwe risked their life and limb voting for MDC because they believed the party would bring about democratic change and end the corruption and political oppression. Well there has been no democratic change and the corruption is more rampant than ever as the looting in Chiadzwa shows. It would be sheer political folly on the part of the people if they are going to once again vote for MDC!
Pressure group Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) has approached the highest human rights court in Africa for protection from harassment and intimidation back home.
Well, last month WOZA campaigned for a yes vote in the referendum to the Copac constitution and the new constitution is now going through its formalities before it is adopted. So if the members were cock-sure the Copac constitution would deliver and guarantee all their democratic right what is all this nonsense about?
WOZA made a big mistake by supporting a weak and feeble Copac constitution. The group should come out in the open, admit it they made a mistake and review where they have come from and where they are going and not just put their heads down and push on like a dung beetle!
We all make mistakes but if we want others to take us seriously then we must admit our mistakes and thus proving we learnt from the mistake and are not going to make a similar blunder!
Denmark
Dear Sir/ Madam
I am a black Zimbabwean and I would like to ask your government to reconsider its recent decision to fund Zimbabwe's coming elections for three reasons:
1) Zimbabwe is wasting billions of dollars from the sale of Marange diamonds alone. Bank rolling the country in this way is only going to encourage its leaders to be wasteful.
2) Zimbabwe has just completed a totally undemocratic and wasteful constitution writing process so shameful that no donor wanted to be associated with the process. There is overwhelming evidence already that the coming elections will too be undemocratic and a waste of money.
3) Funding the elections will give legitimacy to the whole electoral process and undermine the voices of all those who have been arguing for real and meaning democratic change in Zimbabwe. In the end the people of Zimbabwe will continue to suffer the consequences of misrule but worse still they will be confused and disappointed that democracy failed them when what we have here is not democracy.
Thank you.
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