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Zim poll delay ‘won’t bring real change’

Politics
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has filed an urgent application with the country’s top court to push back crucial elections by two weeks, following pressure by regional leaders.

HARARE — Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has filed an urgent application with the country’s top court to push back crucial elections by two weeks, following pressure by regional leaders.

News24

Justice minister Patrick Chinamasa told AFP  that he filed papers on Tuesday that sought “a postponement of the date for the harmonised elections from July 31, 2013 to August 14, 2013”.

The announcement comes just days after Southern African leaders pressed Mugabe to delay the polls to allow more time for democratic reforms.

In setting the original election date, Mugabe had said he was complying with the Constitutional Court’s ruling to hold elections by July 31.

The elections will choose a successor to Zimbabwe’s uncomfortable power-sharing government, which was forged four years ago as a path away from a decade of political violence.

Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, a long-time Mugabe rival, has called for reforms — to free the media, depoliticise the security services and make sure the electoral roll is accurate — before the vote is held.

It was not immediately clear whether the court would grant the extension, or whether two more weeks will be enough to see Tsvangirai’s demands met.

Civil society groups welcomed the prospect of an extra two weeks to allow for the completion of the voter registration process. But, they said, the extra time would do little to change deeply-ingrained attitudes or dissuade Mugabe’s supporters from voter intimidation.

“Fourteen days may be enough to change the laws . . . but not enough to bring really change on the ground,” Trust Mhanda, a member of the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human rights, told AFP in Johannesburg.

“It must not just be a legal change, but that law must be implemented on the ground, and 14 days is not enough for that.”

Leaders from the Southern African Development Community  (Sadc) had on Saturday flexed their muscles and issued an unusual rebuke of Mugabe, asking that he go back to the court and seek a delay.

The Sadc Summit called on all parties to “create a conducive environment for the holding of peaceful, credible, free and fair elections”.

“During proceedings at the said summit, I, in particular was directed to make an urgent application before this honourable court to seek a postponement,” Chinamasa’s filing read.

“In my capacity as the minister responsible for the administration of the Electoral Act, I pray for an order for the extension of the elections to the 14th of August.”

Activists have also expressed scepticism the application to the Constitutional Court could be an academic exercise, to be seen to be complying with the Sadc’s decision.

“You get the sense that their approaching the court is a compliance issue rather than anything else,” Thabani Nyoni, spokesperson of the Crisis Coalition in Zimbabwe said.

“There is no political will per se to really convince the courts to change its decision,” he said.

“It’s a non-committal application, which is actually . . . setting up the court to say ‘there was no sufficient evidence to convince us of the importance of this going forward’,” Nyoni said.