Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe made a speech blunder on Tuesday during the opening of the third session of the eighth Parliament of Zimbabwe.
Instead of reading the parliamentary opening speech, Mugabe re-read his State of the Nation Address, which he delivered in late August.
Presidential spokesperson George Charamba acknowledged the blunder.
“There has been a mix-up of speeches resulting in a situation where his Excellency, the President, delivered the wrong speech,”Charamba said.
“The mix-up happened in his secretarial office, therefore the delivery in Parliament should be set aside. The error is sincerely regretted and corrective measures are being considered.”
Last December, Mugabe shocked more than 12,000 delegates at the Zanu PF congress held in the capital when he unwittingly denounced his own party.
More often during rallies and political gatherings, Zanu PF officials usually denounce the main opposition party led by Morgan Tsvangirai, the Movement for Democratic Change.
But instead, Mugabe said then: “Pasi neZanu PF”, which means “Down with Zanu PF”.
Earlier opposition leader Simba Makoni alleged that the Mossad had been hired by President Robert Mugabe to ensure he won by computerized rigging of the vote.
Ibbo Mandaza, a senior member of Makoni’s campaign team, told the Mail & Guardian that the voters’ roll had been manipulated to favor the ruling ZANU-PF and that the format of the voter’s roll was devised by the Mossad on instructions from the Zimbabwean government.
Information technology expert Valentine Sinemane told the South African newspaper that the electronic version of the voters’ roll, sold to the opposition by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission for $2,400, was compiled by an Israeli company named Nirkuv Projects.
Mandaza said that ZANU-PF asked for Mossad help because of the intelligence agency’s experience with elections in other countries. “They have expertise in vote-rigging. Also, Mossad is looking for any kind of support and alliances and therefore Zimbabwe is the obvious target,” he said.
He said that the opposition was aware that Mossad had been active in Zimbabwe recently. Six Mossad agents arrived in Harare and held top-secret meetings with government officials involved in state security before the election.
I find it interesting that professor Anthony Butler of UCT should point out potential tribal schisms within the ANC in Business Day. According to Stephen Ellis in his book External Mission: the ANC in exile 1960-1990 there had been a gun fight between Xhosa and Zulu members of MK in the Tanzanian camp, but this got buried under the avalanche of details concerning the heroic life of Nelson Mandela.
Many South African and British academics seriously analysed South African ethnicity using the Soviet term “the national question”. For years we were made to believe that, unlike the rest of Africa, this country had no real tribes, only artificial ethnic “divisions” imposed by the Nazi-like “apartheid regime”, at gunpoint as it were.
Likewise, the rise of the South African identity was more or less coterminous with the Book of Genesis, and everything else was just an “imagined community” or a “social construct” like race which would dissipate as people turned into global, brand-conscious consumers.
The uncomfortable truth is that South Africa is no different to any other multiethnic or multinational state where the most numerous group will capture the state through the ballot box and then use clientelism to retain power.
The current system was designed not to ensure efficient or accountable government, but to disenfranchise minorities, especially Afrikaners who do not even rule the tiniest rural municipality anymore.
Machiavelli’s dictum that the prince should be particularly generous in distributing largesse paid for by others will ensure that Afrikaner assets will be plundered to the last cent. Eventually the remaining family-owned farms of Afrikaners will have to go and South Africa will experience a Zimbabwean-style rural melt-down although it might not lead to hyperinflation as long as the mines keep earning foreign exchange. No-one in the City of London will even wince when it happens.
Xhosas and Zulus do not like each other, but they are locked into a kind of prisoner’s dilemma. Given current demographics, neither Kwazulu-Natal nor the Eastern Cape may rule the rest of the country without some degree of cooperation from its sister province on the East Coast.
Together, these two Nguni “dominant tribes” constitute 40% of SA’s population but their respective regions produce just over 20% of our GDP. So the benefits of power are obvious, especially to politicians from impoverished rural areas whose access to the state could turn them and their families into billionaires almost overnight.
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Many people scoffed at the term used by Dr. Piet Koornhof in the 1970s when he referred to the homeland system as a “plural democracy”. I suppose those same cynics are cackling today when they hear that South Africa is no longer a plural, but a “model democracy”.
Given the demographics of the current South Africa there is no way in which even an alliance of minority ethnic groups could ever outvote the ANC. Those opposition politicians, such as the DA, who are pretending otherwise, are not only deluding their supporters but also themselves. Even in the unlikely event that ANC support had to slip among ethnic Zulus and Xhosas, it would be inconceivable for South Africa to ge be governed by a coalition exluding the ANC.
First of all, the outbreak of violence and riots by ANC supporters would far surpass those which occurred in the aftermath of the Kenyan elections of December 2007. ANC potentates who have been treating the state as their private preserve would be very reluctant to leave office. The ruling party would not have to stage a coup because it has already erased any separation of party and state. In the unlikely event that it should ever lose power through the ballot box, it has maintained its militia known as Umkhonto we Sizwe which could be equipped from government military stockpiles. On the other hand, its militia commanders are already in control of the South African National Defense Force, so there would be no need for that.
In fact, the opposition coalition having triumphed at the ballot box would have to stage a coup just to assume office, or summon outside militarry intervention. Given the example of Zimbabwe where ZANU PF has held onto power through a spell of electoral weakness, the outcome seems predictable.
For all intents and purposes, South Africa is a one-party state or one-party dominant state ruled by the East Coast tribes. Event at the University of Cape Town with its British and quasi-British professors who have long denied the existence of ethnicity in South Africa, that reality is finally sinking in.
A shorter version of this column appeared as a letter in Business Day.
Across Zimbabwe, dozens of factories lie idle with peeling paint, rusting machines and broken roofs in once bustling industrial districts, symbols of the huge economic challenge facing President Robert Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party.
On the surface, things look rosy after Mugabe’s landslide election victory in July: growth forecasts are looking more positive as agriculture recovers, inflation has been tamed and the stock market is starting to buzz again after some listless post-election trading.
But look behind the headlines and the landlocked southern African nation’s manufacturing heartlands, which accounted for a quarter of the economy a generation ago, are now wastelands – and some fear the decay is permanent.
From Harare in the north to the second city of Bulawayo in the south, companies are working at a third of capacity, down from 55 percent a year ago, according to the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI).
“Businesses are collapsing, and the economy will need a real big push-start to get going again,” said an accountant winding down tube-making firm BMA Fasteners and Tube and Pipe in Harare. He declined to be named for professional reasons.
“At this rate, it’s frightening to think what the future holds,” the 42-year-old said, scratching his head. “I don’t think it is an exaggeration to say it might just be hell.”
Although they are careful not to blame politics, industry bosses say business confidence has fallen since the 89-year-old Mugabe was declared the overwhelming victor in the July 31 election, which the opposition MDC rejected as rigged.
New finance minister Patrick Chinamasa expects the economy to grow 6.1 percent in 2014 from 3.4 percent this year but that will make no dent in unemployment estimated at over 80 percent.
Zimbabwe’s economy shrank by 45 percent during a decade-long crisis blamed on ZANU-PF, but bounced back in 2009 after Mugabe was forced to share power with arch rival Morgan Tsvangirai after violent and disputed elections the previous year.
The July election put paid to that coalition, and with it what some critics saw as the MDC’s moderating influence on Mugabe and ZANU-PF nationalism.
FOREIGN INVESTMENT
In its most blatant form, that nationalism was manifest in Mugabe’s “indigenisation” push, under which foreign-owned firms have been forced to sell majority stakes to local blacks.
However, with the economy so desperate for capital – some estimates put domestic credit demand at $12 billion, more than double total bank deposits – Mugabe may be forced to soften his anti-foreigner stance.
“We are likely to see a more pragmatic approach by the politicians,” said Grant Flanagan of Amigo Partners, which manages a Zimbabwe-focused investment fund, noting some faint signs of a softening of policy.
Most notably, in his new cabinet, Mugabe swapped combative indigenisation minister Saviour Kasukuwere for a mild-mannered technocrat who has already suggested the government is open to discussion about the extent and timing of black ownership.
However, there are no details and when asked by Reuters about indigenisation, another member of the government, Industry and Commerce minister Mike Bimha, declined to discuss something he said was outside his remit.
Without a decent period of clarity and consistency, investors are unlikely to be writing any cheques.
“ZANU-PF must realise they are in trouble over the economy,” independent economic commentator John Robertson said. “Investors, particularly in mining, where they have an opportunity, will want to see whether there really is any softening. If there is, then definitely the economy stands some chance.”
DAUNTING CHALLENGE
Even then, turning the ship round will be difficult.
The African Development Bank estimates that fixing the infrastructure needs $14 billion, a sum that in reality can only be met by the World Bank and IMF, which stopped lending to Harare in 1999 because of unpaid debts.
Private investors will then have to address a manufacturing vacuum filled by cheap imports, mostly from China.
Nowhere is the evidence more glaring than at David Whitehead, a large textile firm that used to employ 2,500 people in Chegutu, 100 km (60 miles) southwest of Harare, but which collapsed two years ago and stands empty today.
A handful of people are contracted to maintain machinery. Most of the time, only a couple of guards are on patrol.
Elsewhere, the factory sector built during the years of isolation imposed on white-minority Rhodesia has lost makers of everything from shoes to medicines, carpets to building materials and chemicals to food.
In 1986 manufacturing contributed 26 percent of GDP. Today it is just over 2 percent.
The industrial graveyard includes Ziscosteel, once the largest integrated steel works in the region, which shut in 2008 due to what analysts said was gross mismanagement and a failure by the state-owned firm to upgrade its equipment.
The government has been struggling to revive it with a number of foreign firms, including lately Essar from India.
“There is a long way to go and the starting point for our companies is retooling. There is no other way. There is idealism, and then there is reality,” says economist Prosper Chitambara, a leading private economic consultant.
WAIT AND SEE
The Harare tube firm, which used to employ 300 people, says it was a victim of a range of factors – price controls, foreign currency problems, power cuts, and then cheaper imports from India and China.
“Everything that could go wrong went wrong,” said the accountant in charge of its burial rites.
For ZANU-PF, the absence of the MDC as a coalition partner means it has no-one to blame and nowhere to hide.
Robert Mugabe taking a nap
After the July election, it launched a Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Social Economic Transformation, although the document was culled from the black empowerment parts of its manifesto, leading many to see it as more of the same from a party well-known for its empty economic blueprints.
However, aides say Mugabe himself is taking greater interest in the economy in a bid to rebuild a legacy tarnished by the hardships and hyperinflation of the last 13 years.
A glimmer of hope lies in tobacco farming, where state and private support for small-scale farmers is expected to push production to 200,000 tonnes from 45,000 in 2008, the pit of a slump blamed on Mugabe’s seizures of white commercial farms.
Many also see huge potential in mining and diamonds if the government can assuage concerns over forced sales of stakes to locals.
“We have to wait and see,” said the security guard manning the entrance to the David Whitehead factory in Chegutu, echoing a refrain heard in boardrooms from Harare to Johannesburg, London and New York. – Reuters
(Additional reporting by Pascal Fletcher in Johannesburg; Editing by Ed Cropley and Giles Elgood)
When Zimbabwe’s veteran President Robert Mugabe suavely hosted journalists at State House on the eve of last month’s election, there was only one question that caught him off guard.
Asked if the presence of Defence Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa by his side meant he was his chosen successor, Mugabe paused awkwardly amid laughter and then replied unconvincingly that Mnangagwa had just dropped by to see him.
Three weeks after Mugabe’s re-election in a disputed vote called a fraud by his main rival but accepted by his African neighbours, there are no doubts Africa’s oldest leader is holding firmly on to the presidency after 33 years in power.
But the question of whether, at 89, he can serve out all of his new five-year term – and who will succeed him if he steps down or dies – would have hung uncomfortably over his re-installation as Zimbabwe’s head of state last Thursday.
It will also be crucial for the future of the nation, which is rich in minerals but still emerging from a decade-long recession brought on by political violence and government-backed land seizures.
Mugabe faces few immediate threats. Rival Morgan Tsvangirai has been stunned by the enormity of his defeat in an election he says was rigged from start to finish; last week he dropped a challenge to Mugabe’s re-election that his Movement for Democratic Change had filed in the Constitutional Court. The court confirmed Mugabe’s win was “free, fair and credible” and had reflected the “will of the people”.
Faced with broad endorsement of the result by regional and continental bodies, Western governments must now decide whether to shun the man they have reviled as a ruthless dictator for years, or attempt a rapprochement in the interests of practical diplomacy.
Mugabe’s non-committal answer on the succession is typical of a wily and inscrutable guerrilla politician who fought a liberation war leading to independence in 1980, crushed a revolt once in power and has outfoxed rivals in and outside his fractious Zanu-PF.
“Mugabe and Tsvangirai have fought their last elections… one way or another. Whether it was stolen or not, this was a historic election that prefigures change,” Stephen Chan, professor of international relations at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, said.
Adding to Zimbabwe’s uncertain outlook is the perception that another Mugabe term will intensify a succession battle within the ruling party. Zanu-PF has a history of feuds and splits dating back to its bush war against white minority rule in what was then Rhodesia.
Defence Minister Mnangagwa, 66, a guerrilla war veteran and Mugabe’s main security enforcer, is widely seen as a succession contender, along with vice-president Joice Mujuru and State Security Minister Sydney Sekeramayi.
Mnangagwa, earned a hardline reputation as security minister in the 1980s for his role in suppressing rebels in Matabeleland.
Mnangagwa, Mujuru and Sekeramayi have been members of Mugabe’s cabinet since 1980, and played a major role in Zanu-PF’s re-election machine.
During campaigning, Mujuru addressed rallies, Mnangagwa acted as Mugabe’s presidential election agent and Sekeramayi was the ruling party’s point man for the legislative elections in which Zanu-PF was declared the winner.
On the face of it, Mujuru, 58, another liberation war veteran whose nom de guerre was Teurai Ropa (“Spill the Blood”) appears to hold an advantage in the succession stakes because as first party vice-president she acts for Mugabe when he is away.
But under a new constitution adopted earlier this year, Zanu-PF would choose a new president if Mugabe stepped down or were to die before the end of his term. Many fear this could lead to a scramble for power among ambitious aspirants.
This week Mujuru attacked party rivals and presented herself as the moderate leader Zanu-PF needs after Mugabe, local media reported.
“We know that the president will soon be 90 and God might decide to call him … I am best placed to succeed Mugabe if he departs whether by natural wastage or voluntary retirement,” she said.
Far from mellowing his rhetoric, Mugabe has told his post-election critics to “go hang” and promised to increase the pace of “indigenisation” policies forcing foreign-owned firms to sell majority stakes to black Zimbabweans. – Reuters
Various allegations of rigging have been levied against Zimbabwe’s ZANU-PF following their victory in last week’s elections one of the allegations being that the oldest person who voted in Zimbabwe’s 31 July poll is 135 years old and still serves in the Zimbabwe National Army.
This particular allegation was levied by Zimelections13.com in a tweet.
“The oldest person who voted in Zimbabwe’s July 31 poll is 135 years old and still serves in the Zimbabwe National Army”, it tweeted.
The allegation comes as the outcry over the outcome of the just ended disputed elections in Zimbabwe continues to rattle the country and the international community, with the US saying it noted a “number of serious concerns”.
Zimbabwe’s incumbent president Robert Mugabe won overwhelmingly in the polls which have been dismissed as a ‘sham’ by his long-time arch rival Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement Democratic Change.
Tsvangirai and his MDC party are preparing to mount a legal and political challenge against the vote that looks set to extend Mugabe’s 33-year rule.
The case could delay 89-year-old Mugabe’s inauguration for another five-year term. – nairaland.com
Zimbabwe’s Zanu-PF party has defended the fairness of its victory in last week’s elections. The latest challenge to the polls comes from Botswana, which says it will urge regional body Southern African Development Community (SADC) to audit the vote in its neighbouring state.
Botswana Foreign Affairs Minister, Phandu Skelemani, addressing journalists in Gaborone on Monday, said they are concerned that the vote failed to measure up to SADC guidelines.
Western countries have also questioned the polls, while Zimbabwe’s opposition MDC has slammed the polls as fraudulent and plans to challenge them in court.
Zanu-PF spokesperson Rugare Gumbo dismisses all the complaints saying that it is nonsense to talk of rigging because all sorts of structures were set up to ensure that voting was tight and water-proof.
Gumbo says: “The reality on the ground was that everything was done transparently, people voted in peace and tranquillity, the elections were free and fair, and quite credible as far as we are concerned.”
A Methodist church in central Johannesburg has become home to more than 800 Zimbabweans who fled their country following the 2008 elections.
Reactions were mostly positive at the weekend when results showed a resounding victory for Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe and his ZANU-PF.
Election officials confirmed on Saturday evening the landslide win for Mugabe which gave Africa’s oldest president five more years at the helm of a nation he has ruled for 33.
Mugabe’s rival, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader and prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai, who has now lost to the president for the third election running, has disputed the election.
He said he will challenge the results in court with evidence of massive vote-rigging, irregularities and intimidation.
A Zimbabwean staying at the church, 69-year-old Mma Phiri, said she left the country 6 years ago and said she was confident Mugabe would stabilise the country.
Zimbabwe is struggling to recover from a decade of slump and hyperinflation that ended in 2009 when the Zimbabwean dollar was scrapped.
Mugabe campaigned on a platform of redistributing the country’s wealth by taking at least 51% shares in foreign-owned firms to hand them over to black Zimbabweans.
The economy had started to stabilise after Mugabe formed a unity government in 2009 with Tsvangirai to end a stand-off over another contested election, halting a decade of recession marked by hyper-inflation and chronic shortages of food and foreign currency.
Those hardships are still fresh in the minds of Zimbabweans, who endured long queues for everything from bread to fuel and cash and are wary of ZANU-PF’s poor track record on the economy.
“I am so happy because my country will become what it used to be in the 80s,” said Phiri. “MDC is only a matter of spreading rumours about Zimbabwe to the west,” said a Zimbabwean college graduate, Denis Sithole, who also stays at the church.
Mugabe, one of the grand old men of southern Africa’s liberation fight that ended white minority rule, is admired as a defiant nationalist by some Africans, though others share the West’s view of him as a ruthless despot who wrecked Zimbabwe.
He had defiantly ignored a request by Southern African Development Community in June to delay the election beyond July 31 to allow more time for steps to create a “conducive environment” for a free and fair vote. – SABC
Zimbabwe’s Zanu-PF party has dismissed allegations of vote rigging as “absolute hogwash”.
Speaking in an interview with SABC, a spokesperson for Zanu-PF Psychology Maziwisa predicted more than two thirds in parliament would go to Zanu-PF.
“It looks like we will surpass the two thirds majority in parliament. The feeling, the environment in Zimbabwe right now is one of excitement. It feels like we are in 1980 where we’ve reclaimed our independence, our sovereignty as a nation. We look forward to charting the best way for the people of Zimbabwe,” said Maziwisa, who was born well after 1980.
He said these were the most credible elections to be held on the African continent.
“You don’t judge an election using perfection as a standard. You’ve got to look at circumstances objectively and I think if you look at the situation here, what prevailed on July 31st, if you look at it objectively, I think you can only come to one conclusion and that is that we had an election that was free, that was fair, that was credible. In fact this could very well be the freest, the fairest and the most credible election to be held on the African continent,” said Maziwisa.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission has begun announcing official results of Wednesday’s national elections.
The results announced on Thursday confirm earlier reports that Zanu-PF leader Robert Mugabe is headed for a big win, while his Zanu-PF party is set to claim a majority in Parliament.
ZEC deputy chairperson Joyce Kazembe released results of 31 constituencies in Bulawayo, Masvingo and Mashonaland West provinces, of which Zanu-PF claimed 28 of the seats.
Kazembe released results for 18 constituencies in Masvingo, all of which went to Zanu-PF.
Eight of the seats were won by MDC-T in 2008.
Zanu-PF officials and officials from the MDC formations say Zanu PF was likely to take all 26 seats in the province.
Kazembe also released results of 11 constituencies in Mashonaland West.
Ten of the constituencies were won by Zanu-PF, with MDC-T claiming the Chinhoyi Central seat.
MDC-T won the Pelandaba-Mpopoma and Nkulumane seats in Bulawayo and pointers were that the party would claim the 12 seats in the province.
Returns from polling stations indicated MDC-T would win less than 50 of the 210 contested seats in the House of Assembly, giving Zanu-PF the two-thirds majority it needs to change laws in Parliament.
The presidential election is also not likely to go to a runoff, as Mugabe is likely to garner the 50% plus one vote necessary for him to be sworn in as president without a second round. – mg.co.za
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s party claimed on Thursday that the veteran leader had won the hard-fought election over his long-time rival but local observers charged that the vote was seriously flawed.
“We have romped [to victory] in a very emphatic manner. We have defeated the MDC [Movement for Democratic Change],” a top member of Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party told AFP.
He said Mugabe had trounced three-time challenger Morgan Tsvangirai in Wednesday’s vote and that the Zanu-PF had retaken many parliamentary seats in urban areas, where support for the MDC was believed to be strong.
There was no immediate confirmation from election authorities about the claim, and no official results have yet been issued from the presidential and parliamentary vote.
And local observers cited a slew of flaws that called into question the victory claim, after the MDC charged that Mugabe’s rivals had been engaged in vote-rigging.
“The election is seriously compromised,” said Solomon Zwana, the chairperson of Zimbabwe Election Support Network. “Up to a million voters were disenfranchised.”
Regional observers from the African Union had said the process had been “orderly and fair” while the United States said it was too early to make a full judgement.
Turnout was reported to be high nationwide after queues of Zimbabweans lined up for hours to vote in the first election since bloody polls in 2008 that led to the creation of an uneasy government alliance between Mugabe and Tsvangirai.
Final results
The 89-year-old Mugabe, Africa’s oldest leader, is seeking a seventh term but Tsvangirai has voiced hope the election will usher in a new era for the troubled southern African nation.
Final results had been expected within five days of the election and police warned on Wednesday that anyone trying to release unofficial figures ahead of time risked being arrested.
Mugabe himself had even threatened to arrest Tsvangirai if he tried to declare an early victory.
The African Union, which has been accused of whitewashing problems in the run-up to the vote, said initial reports indicated it was “peaceful, orderly, free and fair”.
US State Department spokesperson Marie Harf also said early signs indicated a “peaceful environment” – but that it was too soon to say if the election had been fair.
“We’ve made clear to the government of Zimbabwe and the region that further reductions in our sanctions will only occur if these next elections are credible, transparent and reflect the will of the Zimbabwean people,” she said.
Despite the tensions over the rigging allegations and the fierce rhetoric of the campaign, there were no reports of widespread violence.
Many of the 6.4 million eligible voters started queueing before sunrise in the winter cold, hours before polls opened. The lines continued well into the evening, with many marking their ballots by candle light.
Mugabe said after he cast his ballot there was “no pressure” being exerted on voters.
Series of violent crackdowns
On Tuesday the firebrand had vowed to step down if Tsvangirai was the victor, saying: “If you lose you must surrender.”
Mugabe came to prominence as a hero of Africa’s liberation movement, guiding Zimbabwe to independence in 1980 from Britain and white minority rule.
But his military-backed rule has been marked by a series of violent crackdowns, economic crises and suspect elections that have brought international sanctions and made him a pariah in the West.
As the economy recovers from a crisis that saw mass unemployment and galloping inflation, Mugabe loyalists insist their hero is “tried and tested” and dismiss concerns about his age.
Mugabe had focused his campaign on attacking homosexuals and on promises to widen the redistribution of wealth to poor black Zimbabweans.
Tsvangirai himself predicted the MDC would win “quite resoundingly”.
“This is a very historic moment for all of us,” he said Wednesday. It is the time to “complete the change”.
Tsvangirai won the first round of voting in 2008, but was forced out of the race after 200 of his supporters were killed and thousands more injured in suspected state-backed attacks.
But the 61-year-old former union boss has repeatedly voiced concerns that the election was being rigged and the MDC on Wednesday listed a battery of alleged irregularities.
Rural areas
Finance Minister Tendai Biti, a senior MDC member, said the names of thousands of voters were missing from the electoral roll and that there were two million dead people on the lists.
The MDC handed its evidence to observers from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and since no Western groups were allowed to monitor the polls, its account will be closely watched.
Tsvangirai hopes his plans to lure back foreign investors, create a million jobs in five years and improve public services will deliver a long-awaited victory.
But some analysts had cautioned against interpreting high urban turnout as a sign Tsvangirai would sweep the election — in which the victor needs more than 50% to avoid a second round.
“This election is going to be decided in the rural areas,” where two thirds of Zimbabweans live and where Mugabe enjoys strong support, said Michael Bratton, founder of pollsters Afrobarometer. – AFP
Newly formed South African political party, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) yesterday called on Zimbabweans to vote overwhelmingly for Zanu-PF in the July 31 harmonised elections to protect the gains of the war of liberation.The EFF party is led by former ANC youth league leader Julius Malema.
“The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) calls upon the revolutionary people of Zimbabwe to defend the Zimbabwean revolution by voting for Zanu-PF and retaining comrade Robert Mugabe as the President of that liberated nation,” the party said in a statement.
“The gains of the Zimbabwean revolution must be defended.
“These gains find concrete expression in the historic and unparalleled land redistribution programme that took land from 4 000 white settler farmers who owed 80 percent of Zimbabwean land, and redistributed it to more than 274 000 Zimbabweans! It is your victory. Defend it by any means necessary!”
The EFF said Zimbabweans stood to benefit economically by retaining a Zanu-PF government which has over the years implemented pro-poor policies aimed at uplifting the lives of ordinary Zimbabweans.
The party saluted Zimbabweans for enduring and surviving a brutal and illegal economic sanctions embargo imposed by the West as punishment for returning the stolen land to its rightful owners.
“The people of Zimbabwe have been punished as a strategy to separate the people from the revolutionary leadership of Zanu-PF and leadership of President Mugabe. We say do not allow the schemes of the enemies of Africa to succeed. Vote for liberation! Vote Zanu-PF!
“We implore the people Zimbabwe to realise that the Zimbabwean revolution is still under massive attacks and new plots are being hatched and new schemes cooked to reverse the gains you have made.
“The demonisation of Zanu-PF and comrade Mugabe is part of the plot to divide the nation for re-colonisation,” it said.
The EFF also called on Zanu-PF to continue implementing the indigenisation programme in order to complete the economic emancipation of the black majority. – The Herald
ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe has accused Zimbabwe’s Zanu-PF of using Julius Malema’s party to destabilise the ANC in Limpopo.
Mantashe also accused Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) of distorting the Freedom Charter.
He was addressing political journalists and their editors during an ANC monthly political briefing in Joburg on Monday.
Mantashe said the EFF’s call for grabbing land without compensation and the nationalisation of mines had been influenced by Zanu-PF.
He said the EFF had adopted Zanu-PF’s policy despite the fact that Robert Mugabe’s party had destroyed the Zimbabwean economy.
“The EFF has the influence of Zanu-PF. There have been active engagements between its leaders and with Zanu-PF. Zanu-PF is using them to destabilise the ANC in Limpopo.
“Zanu-PF destroyed the economy of their country. In 1980, the value of the Zim dollar was R1.50 and today it has no value. It is a massive destruction of the economy. I do not want South Africa’s economy to collapse,” Mantashe said.
He also lambasted Malema for allegedly distorting the ANC policy on land, saying the Freedom Charter never advocated nationalisation of mines and land grabs without compensation.
“The Freedom Charter never wanted to take land by force. The charter states that the land is owned by all those who work it. We never propagated the nationalisation of mines. It is not what the Freedom Charter is saying,” Mantashe said.
He said the ANC would not encourage a Zimbabwean-style land grab but would rather allocate farming land to people who had a passion for farming.
“We are not going to give people farms who will in future just use these farms as places for weekend braais. We are going to give land to peasants who are going to use the farms to succeed,” he said.
Mantashe said his party was looking forward to the establishment of its proposed task team to be set up by President Jacob Zuma. One of its priorities would be to stabilise the mining industry. – The Star
Coca-Cola Zimbabwe hastily removed an open palm symbol it was using on its red cans as part of its “Crazy for Good Campaign” after it was accused of aiding the MDC.
The move follows a barrage of accusations from Zanu-PF that the international firm was overtly campaigning for Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s formation of the MDC, whose party symbol is the open palm and party colour is also red.
The Zimbabwe flag has replaced the “offensive” open palm that some in Zanu-PF felt was intended to attract votes for the opposition.
In May this year the state-controlled Herald accused Coca-Cola of being an “agent of regime change”. Coca-Cola denied alleged links with Tsvangirai or the MDC.
At the time, the Mail & Guardian reported Zanu-PF’s director of information, Psychology Maziwisa, as saying: “We want our sovereignty and independence as a country to be respected.
“We want commercial entities to operate with us purely on commercial and business terms and not to delve into politics.”
Asked whether the company had bowed to political pressure, Coca-Cola Zimbabwe’s public affairs and communication office referred the M&G to a statement published in the Herald in May, in which it said the offending cans had been imported from South Africa to fill a gap in the market and were not a form of politicking.
“It was clearly stated that locally produced cans bear the Zimbabwe flag, and Crazy for Good graphics are for those imported from South Africa. Both types of cans are available in the market . . . Bottlers in Zimbabwe will continue to supplement local production with imports of any packs of beverage to cover any shortfall that might arise for any reason,” the statement says. – M&G
Zimbabwe’s main opposition the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) on Thursday said President Robert Mugabe’s planned timetable for a constitutional referendum and elections was not realistic.
In a High Court filing seen on Thursday, Mugabe proposed a referendum for the first week of November and presidential and legislative polls for March next year.
“The dates being proposed are clearly not feasible,” MDC spokesman Douglas Mwonzora told AFP.
“The date for the election, especially, is unilateral, unrealistic and has no scientific or legal basis.”
Mugabe’s ruling ZANU-PF party has objected to many aspects of the long-delayed draft constitution that was only finished in July and would rein in presidential powers.
Mwonzora added his party was more concerned about conditions under which the vote takes place rather than the date. “For us to meet those dates, ZANU-PF has to change drastically.”
“We want elections to be held in conditions which allow the secrecy of the vote and the security of both the vote and the voter,” said Mwonzora.
Opposition MDC party members were on the receiving end of the violence that characterised the 2008 elections. – AFP
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