View Single Post
Old March 8th, 2008 #74
Alex Linder
Administrator
 
Join Date: Nov 2003
Posts: 45,756
Blog Entries: 34
Default


[On the upcoming election and niggy SA's standing by brother Bob]


Opposition candidates are not able to campaign freely - they and their supporters continue to be harassed, arrested, abducted, beaten and killed. Some have had their homes burnt; their meetings banned or broken up; the electoral rolls are in hopeless disorder, which will allow thousands of dead, departed and other “ghost” voters to cast ballots; food aid is being distributed though ZANU PF offices to buy votes; the media are not free with the state-owned newspapers, television and radio services hopelessly biased in favour of Mugabe and his ZANU PF party; independent newspapers such as the popular Daily News remain closed; and most independent journalists have been hounded out of the country. Mugabe has even decreed that only “friendly” observer teams will be allowed into the country to monitor the elections, and if they run true to form they will turn a blind eye to all these grotesque abuses and validate the outcome.

All this reflects shamefully on the SA government and the SADC as a whole. They have failed miserably, politically and morally. Most shameful of all has been the applause accorded Mbeki at last month’s SADC summit for his supposed success in negotiating a deal between ZANU PF that would ensure a free and fair election … and Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad’s echoing of that false claim of success back here in South Africa. This was the sheerest sophistry. It was true, as Pahad said, that the four negotiators - two representing ZANU PF and one each from the Tsvangirai and Mutambara wings of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) - had reached agreement. But, as Pahad added, “All that remains is for the agreement to be processed” - well knowing there was no time for the agreement to be processed into law before the election.

http://mandebvhu.bundublog.com/2008/...y-for-bob-yet/