PRIME Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has called for a full Sadc summit to focus on cementing the roadmap to free and fair elections in Zimbabwe.
BY NQABA MATSHAZI Tsvangirai held an hour long meeting with the Sadc observer mission on Friday, where he said there were a number of issues that were still outstanding from the GPA that were paramount to the holding of a credible election.
“He said Sadc, as the guarantor of the GPA, should use a full Summit to assess whether Zimbabwe was ready for free, fair and credible elections based on a checklist on agreed positions,” a statement issued after the meeting reads.
“The summit could use its past resolutions as a yardstick to measure compliance with the bloc’s standards for the conduct of free and fair elections as there.”
Some of the key reforms which Tsvangirai said were yet to be implemented include security sector and media reforms, adding that it would be tragic for Zimbabwe to go ahead with elections without those reforms.
He expressed concern at the at the deployment of senior military officers ahead of the referendum and elections, saying the actions by security personnel showed a lack of paradigm shift despite four years of existence of the inclusive government.
The premier told the mission there had been a resurgence of violence, there was selective application of the law and that the police were partisan.
He accused the RG’s office of coming up with tactics to disenfranchise first time voters and those people previously classified as aliens.
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“The RG’s office was demanding several documents which were not normally required for one to register to aliens, Tsvangirai told the observer mission. “In some instances, hoards of soldiers were being bussed to registration centres to disturb the registrations.”
Tsvangirai called for the Sadc troika representatives to be deployed urgently in the Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee (Jomic), adding that the body would now be required to present detailed reports to cabinet. Sadc has seconded three people to the monitoring committee, but they are yet to assume their duties.
