MDC: Poll could be postponed
2004-10-28 11:00
Special Report
Four Chinese men face deportation from Zimbabwe after they were arrested for killing more than 40 tortoises for meat, a report says.
A dusty road leads to the village of Wedza, where veterans of Zimbabwe's liberation war eke out a meagre living on their farm cooperative, which after a promising start now brings only despair.
Johannesburg - Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai on Thursday said crunch elections next year in the crisis-ridden country may have to be postponed due to the limitations of the electoral machinery to conduct free and fair polls.
The 52-year-old former trade unionist spoke in Johannesburg before returning home from a whirlwind southern African tour, which included meetings with South African President Thabo Mbeki and Mauritian Prime Minister Paul Berenger.
"Our approach to the (regional) leaders is that we are concerned that there may not be sufficient time between now and march to implement the sort of institutional changes that are required to run a free and fair election," Tsvangirai said.
He referred to the establishment of an independent electoral commission to oversee next year's crucial elections.
Timeframe for elections
"That commission is not there and by the time it is appointed, it will not have sufficient time to appoint the staff or put the electoral machinery in place," Tsvangirai said.
"Therefore I think the reality is that there may be a need to reconsider the timeframe for elections because of the limitations of the institutions that are going to run those elections," he said.
Tsvangirai, on his first trip overseas in nearly three years after being acquitted on charges of plotting to have Mugabe assassinated, said he had "productive" meetings with both Mbeki and Berenger, the current chairman of the 14-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC).
"I found the engagement with President Mbeki very productive and I found his attitude to be open, concerned and of course, to be committed to finding a solution which will lead to the resolution to the crisis in Zimbabwe."
A South African initiative to broker peace between Mugabe's government and the main opposition MDC has so far yielded virtually no results.
Tsvangirai said he explained to Mbeki and Berenger that the (political) "dynamics currently on the ground... are woefully inconsistent with the standards expected under the SADC protocol on democratic elections."
The MDC has said before it would not contest elections if Zimbabwe did not adhere to standards set by the SADC at a meeting in Mauritius in August.
He also blasted the deportation of a 13-member fact-finding mission of South Africa's largest trade union body, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) on Wednesday.
"We condemn this treatment in the strongest terms. The deportation of this delegation underlines just how far Zimbabwe has sunk in relation to respecting people's basic rights and freedoms," he said.
- AFP