Zimbabwe elections

Selby Khumalo, MP


ANC chief whip Mbulelo Goniwe, who was speaking in his capacity as head of the South African parliamentary observer mission team to Zimbabwe, has recently been quoted in the media as saying that the ACDP was one of the parties to have “unanimously” agreed that the Zimbabwe elections were “credible, legitimate, free and fair”.

He was further quoted as saying members of the observer mission team who made statements on the Zimbabwe election did so in their “capacity as members of the mission and not spokespersons of their respective parties”.

It is exactly for this reason that the ACDP would like to reiterate its official position as pointed out in a statement released April 6 and state that we do not subscribe to the position that the Zimbabwe elections were “credible, legitimate, free and fair”.

Upon the return of our MP Louis Green - who was part of the observer mission team - we were, after taking various factors into consideration, able to conclude that the Zimbabwe elections were relatively peaceful and free but definitely not fair.

By declaring the elections relatively peaceful and free, we mean that voters within the country were not physically prevented from casting their vote.

To qualify the “not fair” part, we explained that the electoral field was heavily skewed by outlining some reasons below:

- In terms of article 2.2.5 of the SADC protocol, SADC states are obliged to open up public media to opposition parties. However, by the end of February, no attempts had been made to open the public media, three independent newspapers had been shut down, and leading journalists had been intimidated and had fled the country. It was only in the last week before the elections that the public broadcaster allowed the opposition access, and then time was allocated disproportionately in favour of Zanu-PF.

- In addition UN Secretary General Kofi Annan expressed his concerns about the fairness of the Zimbabwean elections. As did the African Union Observer team that was concerned about media reports alleging that the number of votes did not tally with the final vote in several constituencies.

We continue to follow events as they unfold in the aftermath of the Zimbabwe elections with particular reference to the MDC’s court challenge. We await the debate in Parliament following the release of the mission’s final report in order to further clarify our position.