Maravi

(NEWZIMBABWE) Mugabe seeks AU poll backing

COMMENT - Unlike what the reader seems to believe, Zimbabwe doesn't need to ask anyone's permission to hold elections. He already has 'AU support', in that they wills send election observers - whose thumbs up will be drowned out in gory headlines about alleged violence, which will serve the purpose of the United States and the UK stating how they won't recognize the outcome, when Morgan Tsvangirai doesn't win. They want the diamonds, and nothing else will do - certainly not the will of the Zimbabwean people.

Mugabe seeks AU poll backing
29/01/2012 00:00:00
by Staff Reporter

PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe is expected to use the African Union summit under way in Ethiopia to secure the backing of continental leaders in his push for new elections in the country this year. Mugabe is already in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa for the key summit which started on Friday.

Zimbabwe is not on the agenda of the meeting and South African officials confirmed that President Jacob Zuma – the regional SADC grouping’s point-man on the country – would not present a report on the situation in the country. Still, Mugabe is expected to press AU leaders to endorse his push for new elections in the country.

The Zanu PF leader wants to end his partnership with long-term rival and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, insisting the arrangement -- facilitated by SADC after inconclusive election in 2008 -- was no longer workable.

In a statement issued ahead of the summit, party spokesman, Rugabe Gumbo said the AU should “demand the holding of elections in Zimbabwe this year as well as the unconditional removal of economic sanctions by Western countries.”

Zanu PF would have been buoyed by indications that some regional leaders would back fresh polls, with Zambia’s Michael Sata publicly stating he would not block the move.

"You people, the Western countries, you taught us that democracy is elections. Now somebody wants elections and you say no," Sata said in a recent interview with the UK-based Telegraph newspaper.

However, Tsvangirai insists a new constitution and a raft of other political reforms must be completed first before new elections can be held.

"We have a deadline; March 2013 is the end of this parliament so we have to go to an election. We have to go to an election between now and March 2013,” Tsvangirai said last week.

He added that conditions must be put in place first to ensure the election outcome is not disputed.

"You can't have an election under conditions in which there is no credibility. We can't talk of elections when we have not even adopted the constitution, we have not even gone to the referendum," he said.

"We have to make sure that things are implemented for the conditions for elections to be free and fair."

Labels: 2011 ELECTIONS (ZIMBABWE), AGRICULTURAL MARKETING AUTHORITY, JACOB ZUMA, ROBERT MUGABE

posted by MrK @ 5:09 PM