Instead, they must dispatch technical teams on the ground in Zimbabwe to independently assess human rights conditions and the elections environment and then work alongside the government of Zimbabwe to implement a credible roadmap to elections.
Such a roadmap must address directly the problem of transfer of power to the eventual winner following a free and fair election.
It is the problem of refusal by an incumbent government, backed by the military, to transfer power to a winner that was at issue with the December 2007 elections in Kenya — leading to a violent conflict, with Zimbabwe’s 2008 elections as well as with Ivory Coast more recently.
The cases of Kenya and Zimbabwe have shown that the so-called power-sharing government compromises are a bad precedent where there is neither real power-sharing nor a change in political direction.
The best way forward, therefore, remains that of insisting on credible elections that meet regional and international standards on democratic elections and putting in place mechanisms to effect peaceful transfer of power to the winner.
Nothing short of this arrangement is going to work for Zimbabwe.
Dewa Mavhinga
