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Mbeki 'short-sighted' on Zim
13/04/2008 15:57 - (SA)
Johannesburg - The Freedom Front Plus has called on the Speaker of Parliament to call an immediate session to discuss the Zimbabwe crisis.
Spokesperson Pieter Mulder said on Sunday that it was bad that Parliament had to date not discussed the report of South African observers at the previous elections.
"SA is suffering irreparable damage on an international level as a result of President Thabo Mbeki's disappointing and short-sighted handling of the issue."
Mbeki told journalists after talks with Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe on Saturday that the election stalemate was not a crisis.
According to the FF+, Mbeki's view made a mockery of South Africa in the eyes of the world. No advantage for SA
"Mbeki's view is short-sighted as there is absolutely no advantage for South Africa to attempt to uphold a totally discredited Mugabe."
Mbeki was continuously demanding that the crisis in Zimbabwe should be resolved in a democratic way, he said.
"When the MDC does exactly that, President Mbeki prefers to give legitimacy to President Mugabe by saying that there is no crisis in Zimbabwe," said Mulder.
"In this he is strengthening Mugabe in his undemocratic abuse of power to, for the third time, steal an election." Re-countt
According to the FF+ nowhere in the world did it take longer than 14 days for election results to be made known and in theory Mugabe could not ask for a re-count of the votes in the presidential election without him knowing what the results were.
"These facts confirm the blatant interference of Mugabe in the election process and the total lack of independence of the Zimbabwean Election Committee (ZEC)."
"There are huge question marks as to how free and fair the two previous elections in Zimbabwe were. Everything is now pointing to the re-count of votes in 22 wards," he said.
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