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Leaders decry Zimbabwe delay

Zimbabwean church leaders said people are being tortured, abducted and some murdered in a campaign of political retribution that could escalate to genocidal proportions if nothing is done.

Leaders of all denominations called for international intervention to help end the post-election crisis. They called for the immediate announcement of results from the March 29 presidential election that longtime Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is widely believed to have lost.

In a joint statement yesterday, the leaders said: “The nation is in a crisis.”

Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith also criticized Mugabe yesterday, saying he was trying to steal last month’s election and calling the recount of votes a sham.

“It is now absolutely apparent that Mr Mugabe will do anything to steal this election,” Smith told a news conference. “It is quite clear that their so-called recount is nothing but a sham ... a blatant attempt by Mr Mugabe to either avoid a presidential run-off or have a presidential run-off in which intimidation, threats, thuggery pervert the will of the Zimbabwean people.”

With the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai claiming victory but Mugabe refusing to concede defeat, Smith called for pressure to be maintained on Zimbabwe to release the results.

A recount is under way of both the parliamentary and presidential elections in 23 of Zimbabwe’s 210 constituencies.

South Africa’s ruling party leader Jacob Zuma said yesterday the delay was not acceptable and called on African leaders to take action to solve the post-poll deadlock.

“It’s not acceptable,” Zuma said in an interview in Berlin. “It’s not helping the Zimbabwean people who have gone out to... elect the kind of party and presidential candidate they want, exercising their constitutional right.”

“At this point in time ... I imagine that the leaders in Africa should really move in to unlock this logjam,” African National Congress leader Zuma said. “Concretely this means African countries should identify some people to go in there, probably talk to both parties, call them and ask them what the problem is, as well as the electoral commission,” Zuma said.

As the country sweated the results, awkward questions were being asked of the opposition leadership’s decision to stay abroad and out of harm’s way.

Tsvangirai has been out of the country for more than two weeks since he proclaimed himself victor, while the party’s No. 2, MDC Secretary-General Tendai Biti, also appears in no mood to return.

With both men facing the very real danger of arrest for treason if they step foot back on Zimbabwean soil, any reluctance on their behalf is perhaps understandable.

But observers say the strategy has created a dangerous vacuum as the MDC tries to coordinate its response while awaiting results.

“The absence of the country’s top leadership is creating a gulf between the leadership and the general membership who voted for the party,” academic and labor activist Takavafira Zhou said. “The general membership are unaware of the party’s way forward.”

“If it’s a strategy, it’s a poor, counter-productive strategy, whatever the rationale behind it,” said Eldred Masunungure, a political studies lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe. “The ruling party is going to have field day. That is going to be costly in terms of maintaining and building on its [MDC] support base.”
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