PRESIDENT Emmerson Mnangagwa’s administration was playing for time and trying to hoodwink the world over the issue of the contentious Diaspora vote, opposition parties have said.
BY RICHARD CHIDZA
This came amid reports that Foreign Affairs and International Trade minister Sibusiso Moyo told Bloomberg TV early this week that government was working on modalities to allow Zimbabweans based in the Diaspora to vote in this year’s general elections.
“The Constitution allows them to do so (vote), but for now, we are still working on the logistics to make sure all Zimbabweans in all the world’s capitals are able to vote. We are incapacitated,” Moyo reportedly said.
But MDC-T spokesperson Thabitha Khumalo said Moyo was being dishonest since Mnangagwa recently claimed that government did not have resources to allow for diapora votes, effectively shutting them out of this year’s polls.
“I am not even too sure what logistics they are working on because for Diasporans to vote from whichever country they are, they need to register. This means government needs to send the biometric voter registration kits into all these countries,” Khumalo said.
Obert Gutu spokesperson, of the Thokozani Khupe-led faction of the MDC-T, echoed similar sentiments.
“The main challenge is that government invariably always complains of lack of funds. The question would be is the necessary budgetary support now in place or they are just selling us a dummy in order to hoodwink the international community into believing that they are ready to carry out reforms,” Gutu said.
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Former Vice-President Joice Mujuru’s spokesperson Gift Nyandoro also accused the government of trying to score cheap points by misleading the international community. “The military regime needs to tell Zimbabweans what it means by ‘logistics’. Failure to make full disclosure will constitute an affirmation of Mnangagwa’s lack of goodwill. Sincerity should be demonstrated by way of delivery not rhetoric grandstanding,” he said.
Jacob Mafume, spokesperson of Tendai Biti’s People’s Democratic Party, chipped in, saying: “The approach of allowing an actor in an election to make major pronouncements about the elections should be denounced. It is the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) that should be working on such a programme. It is a plot to try and force Zec into the Zanu PF pocket and this does not happen in progressive democracies.”
