I refer to the recent call by President Ian Khama of Botswana on SADC to carry out an audit of Zimbabwe’s disputed July 2013 elections results in which the regional elections observers had said were marred by many serious irregularities. I believe you should give his call your serious and urgent consideration.
Please note that up to
date, six months after the elections, the Zimbabwe government has still failed
to release the voters roll although it was expected to release one at least a
month before the elections.
The failure to hold
clean elections has increased the political uncertainty in Zimbabwe and this
has resulted in even greater economic instability. The situation is so bad that
there is real fear of Zimbabwe becoming a failed State with even greater political
and economic consequence for the country and the region.
Urgent action should be
taken before it is too late and that action can start with getting the Zimbabwe
government to accept and independent audit of the July elections or the Harare
government accepting there were irregularities in the elections and therefore
the need for fresh elections.
SADC should also investigate the role the
Israel company, Nikuv International Projects played in Zimbabwe’s July 2013
elections. The Israeli government was warned at government level about
Nikuv's activities but chose to do nothing about it. It would be tragic if SADC
was to do nothing too. Nikuv remains active in the region and the prospect
of rigged elections becoming the norm is unthinkable!
SADC’s credibility of
holding and judging free and fair elections has been badly tarnished by the
regional body’s failure to act decisively on the Zimbabwe political crisis
since 2008. It is important acts decisive now for the sake of us all living in
the region.
5 comments:
What is Chinamasa wittering about; he is tired of "fire fighting" to stabilise the economy? Since when has those throwing fuel and sulphur to make a burning inferno even been considered fire fighters. The idiot passed a budget seeking to spend the little the nation earns in beefing up the security sector, especially the CIO at a time with the economy is in deep, deep trouble with companies closing down everyday making the nightmare even worse.
There is rampant corruption and looting in the diamond industry; that is the issue. You just wasting time talking about reducing the number of players.
The economy is nothing more than a donkey; this donkey is sick and can hardly carry its own weight let alone the bloated civil service. It is cheap talk to say you will find money to pay all civil servants when only last week you forced them to accept a much reduced pay increase because government is broke.
Mugabe's reckless spending to pay for the massive vote rigging operation was bad enough, Chinamasa's budget showed the whole world Zanu PF has given up on ever getting the nation out of the economic mess the party landed us into.
You are throwing more and more petrol to the burning inferno; you cannot stabilize the economy whilst the rampant corruption and looting continues; that is impossible!
SADC took on the responsibility of being the guarantors of the GPA that saw the rehabilitation of Mugabe back into the international community following the 2008 Zimbabwe elections which were marred by some of the worst wanton electoral violence in human history. The GPA set out a roadmap calling on the GNU in Harare to implement democratic reforms and draft a new democratic constitution and then the holding of fresh elections.
Not even one of the reforms was implemented and the Copac constitution produced by the dysfunctional GNU is not even worth the paper it is written on..
To be fair to SADC Heads of State, they were are of the failure by Harare to deliver of any of the conditions for free and fair elections. They roundly criticized the then Prime Minister and his MDC colleagues for "forgetting" they were in the GNU to implement the reforms, etc.
As the guarantors of the GPA the question SADC Heads failed to answer a year ago and has come back again and again and will never go away is why SADC Heads allowed the elections to go ahead knowing none of the conditions for free and fair elections had been met?
Of course it was no surprise to anyone other than the naïve Tsvangirai and his MDC supporters that the July 2013 were NOT free, fair or credible. SADC Heads compounded their earlier mistake by giving Mugabe's vote rigging their approval.
Allowing Mugabe to blatantly disregard the reforms agreed in the GPA and flout the region's own electoral rules has inflated the tyrant's ego but deflated all confidence in Zimbabwe as a country where the individual has any rights and there is such thing as rule of law. The political and economic consequences of this vote of no confidence are even greater economic melt-down and political instability then the 2008 that forced SADC to formulate the GPA.
SADC Heads must act now to sort out the mess in Zimbabwe; their reputation is at stake, the region's political and economic stability is at stake and the very future of the people of Zimbabwe is at stake. Zimbabwe remains SADC's unfinished business, doing nothing about it is simply not a option
@ Chimbwido
No one in the CIO is known for being smart; they are well known for being ruthless and repeating whatever they are instructed to say regardless how stupid that may be.
Chimbwido, as the name imply, is the type CIO operatives would want to use to do some of these really dirty jobs and pay them peanuts. A few months ago he was up in arms at seeing how rich Philip Chiyangwa, with all his posh cars, farms, houses, businesses, etc. Chiyangwa has done nothing to help establish the Zanu PF dictatorship. Meanwhile Chimbwido kicked innocent Zimbabweans "until they bled profusely" only he got for all that is a tiny piece of land.
Chimbwido is the big-mouth type the CIO would want killed if he was back in Zimbabwe because they know he will finger them now that the dictatorship is on its last legs. He will shout his support for Mugabe but from the safety of London but will never go back to Zimbabwe. It is not just the chaos he is afraid of but, ironically, the murderous CIO!
@ Alfredo
Botswana is doubly lucky in not having a naïve Motswana like you in any leadership position and having a man of vision like President Khama for president. In contrast, Zimbabwe is doubly unlucky in having the blundering idiot like Tsvangirai as PM and murderous tyrant Mugabe for president!
Mugabe is building a Spy University to turn Zimbabwe into a North Korea style Police State. Life is hard in Zimbabwe but it is going to be hell-on-earth if he is allowed to complete his project. Do you really believe Mugabe will not have his spies operating in Botswana and other countries? Of course, you never thought of that; as I said you are very naïve green horn!
In 2009 Mugabe denied the $ 5 million Hong Kong pad where Bona lived was rented when the story had broken out that Mugabe had bought the property. Now the world learns that Mugabe lied; he had bought the property.
It should be noted that the property was bought at a time when Zimbabwe was facing its worst economic melt-down. At the time the regime was spending pittance on the educa-tion of millions of children in Zimbabwe whilst the ruling elite send their children out of the country for their schooling at great expense. They paid the expense out of the looted na-tional wealth.
Here we go: for the last 34 years Mugabe has been looting and murdering our people and has kept everything under a shroud of secrecy and if anything leaked out the tyrant has vehemently and contemptuously denied the stories. The stories have continued to build as the murders and the looting piled up. The cup is full to overflowing Mugabe cannot contain it anymore. The regime is collapsing, the centre cannot hold, things fall apart!
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