'Zim should postpone polls'
2005-03-09 16:48
Pretoria - The upcoming Zimbabwean elections should be postponed, said a Cosatu leader at a picket outside the Zimbabwe embassy in Pretoria on Wednesday.
Deputy president Joe Nkosi said: "The elections in Zimbabwe will not be free and fair under the present legislation."
Asked to give the Zimbabwean government a mark out of ten for its progress towards achieving democratic elections, Nkosi gave it a zero.
Nkosi said: "They do not even qualify for a mark. There is duplication of names on the voters roll. The political climate is not right for free and fair elections."
He said Cosatu wanted the Zimbabwean people to be liberated from oppression, just as their South African counterparts had been.
Protest for human rights abuses
Nkosi said: "The playing field before the elections still favours the Zanu-PF as workers, and political parties are unable to assemble in groups of more than four."
About 100 protesters picketed outside the embassy to protest human rights abuses.
They also demanded that a fact-finding mission be allowed to go to the country to investigate whether free and fair elections would take place.
Patrick Craven said Cosatu planned to continue picketing the embassy in the run-up to the March 31 elections.
The protests would culminate in a vigil at Beit Bridge on the South African-Zimbabwe border on the night before Zimbabweans went to the polls.
- SAPA