Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC-T has said the party was ready for elections but attacked Zanu PF and accused its politburo of political grandstanding by calling for elections this year.
This comes in the wake of remarks by the former ruling party last week that elections will be held this year.
MDC-T spokesperson Douglas Mwonzora told NewsDay yesterday Zanu PF was scared of elections, and said MDC-T was ready for elections but insisted the process should be done freely and fairly. “Firstly, the so-called Zanu PF politburo is nothing but political posturing,” Mwonzora said.
“Zanu PF is pretending that it wants elections when in actual fact it is scared of elections. The MDC’s position is that we are ready for free and fair elections. We are ready for a free and fair election anytime but the conditions have to be free and fair for the people of Zimbabwe to vote freely. The only reason why Zanu PF is talking about elections is because they are creating conditions that are adverse to holding of free and fair elections.”
The MDC-T was responding to a declaration by the Zanu PF politburo last week that elections should be held this year. But, Zanu PF spokesperson Rugare Gumbo, said the former ruling party politburo had unanimously re-endorsed the party’s Mutare congress resolutions on elections.
Speaking soon after the politburo meeting on Wednesday, Gumbo said their chief negotiator to the Global Political Agreement (GPA), Patrick Chinamasa, had taken them through the issue of election timelines, but the party had rejected them.
“Some of the timeframes are unacceptable, given that they will drag elections until next year or 2013,” Gumbo said, adding Zanu PF would push for elections this year.
The South African facilitation team to the Zimbabwe political crisis has said polls can only be held when all the provisions in the GPA and the election roadmap are fulfilled.
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South African President Jacob Zuma’s international relations adviser and spokesperson of the facilitation team, Lindiwe Zulu, last week reiterated that elections can only be held after full implementation of the GPA. Zulu said:
“In as far as elections are concerned there are certain processes that need to be followed, among them implementing everything in the election roadmap. It’s not for the facilitation team to determine when elections will be held, but they should be held when the environment is conducive, when all parties are happy and when the institutions that are supposed to run the elections are in place.”
