via ‘No Sadc endorsement of polls yet’ – Zimbabwe Election: Latest News & Voting Information
LILONGWE — Malawi President Joyce Banda yesterday said Sadc was yet to pass its verdict on the credibility of Zimbabwe’s elections.
“We are still waiting for the Sadc and AU (African Union) report to say the election was credible,” Banda, who is the new Sadc chairperson, told journalists at the end of the summit.
“We were also waiting for the court verdict, but we hear (MDC-T leader Morgan) Tsvangirai has withdrawn, so we don’t know what is happening. The issue of credibility and fairness will be dealt with once we receive reports from the observer missions.”
Sadc leaders had appeared to be endorsing President Mugabe’s disputed victory when the summit opened on Saturday.
Meanwhile, Mugabe reportedly met Botswana President Ian Khama in Lilongwe for bilateral talks.
It was not immediately clear what the two leaders discussed.
Botswana had urged Sadc to carry out a forensic audit of the July 31 polls saying there was evidence that they were manipulated.
COMMENTS
Do these SADC leaders know their right hand from their left. 14 million of us Zimbos are left astounded at the injustice, lack of wisdom and utter lack of leadership in Southern Africa
Maybe they are coming to their senses. The elections were rigged but they want to think and see otherwise
Why would Mugabe meet Khama? To convince him that he ‘won’ the stolen vote?
Let me tell you Zimbabweans time is very short five years sounds as if 100 years but is just few days that comes. Us Zimbabweans let God solve this problem we will rejoice very soon. Some of us we will say is this true when it happens.
Hatinete, with all due respect, if 2008 was just one year, I wouldn’t wish five of those on anyone!
Mugabe had been in power since 1980,it is nature that everybody dies but i wuoldnt say that he must die, God knows,at his age it raises some tripidations that people cotinue talking about him ,can you shut up and start working out on his successor,those on line to be successors are hungry of power , hopefully we wont regret that Mugabe is gone. Sweet Zimbabwe ,sweet Zimbabwe what a lovely country. We hoped MDC T will do and bring changes , but because they are so devided into factions they failed ,now they cry like babies and pushing a blame for rigging which they have failed to prove in a court of law.They must bring their house together and stop distroying Zimbabwe , i blame them for contributing to the sanctions posed to Zimbabwe.
I wonder exactly what you are talking about Thabo? Which courts are you refering to? These Zanu Pf courts on which Zanu Pf judges like Chidyausiku and the like seat as judges? The Zim. courts are synonimous to Zanu Pf. Its just a difference in how the two are spelt. Thumbs up to MDC T for withdrawing the petition before these ZANU PF courts. Long live Morgan Tsvangirai. The battle has just began. Let this old man get inagurated and will see how he will survive for five more years
You are right Tapiwa. The battle has just began. Don’t listen to people like Khabo, they don’t know what they are talking about.
Khabo good point…the MDC caused problems for itself by splitting…..where as the common cause for democracy and not personal differences should have taken priority. Mugabe has done too much damage to the jewel of africa and so his passing away will be celebrated mostly as good riddance as mentioned before. sadc need a good kickup the jack and serve a worthy purpose…not just have meetings about meetings. Be truthful and do what is right…not too much to ask for is it!!!!????
Why did Banda congratulate Mugabe if the Sadc observer mission hasnt given the report? They r scared of the old donkey!
I agree with you mate, the SADC grouping is so much afraid of this Old Monkey without an identity:- Mother Bona Mugabe, Son Robert Mugabe, Sister with with 14 children Sabina Mugabe, the other one born within the family again Leo Mugabe: What’s this?
SADC please hear our cries
The allegation of of vote rigging was seriously eyed by the whole world ,never mind people like Tapiwa doesnt see the negative impact of these allegations to the country, Tapiwa you don’t have faith on the judges with your speculations that they are taking sides , but Morgan should have gone through this difficult process ,if the evidence from him was going to be factual,then the whole world should have judged this, it might be good for Morgan’s withdrawal but this has discredited him very badly ,otherwise he should have accepted the election results solely for a way forward and Zimbabwe should be a step ahead today .If really he is having such vital evidence of votes rigging , where is he going to file that and for what goog reasons ,the court should have opened such a file for future referrence . My party MDC T, please lets work on our weaknesses and be combined like ZANU PF.The leaders of MDC failed to protect the name of the party through splitting and in so doing they splitted the votes unnecessary, ZANU PF has never splitted since it formed later after the independence ,open your own party and call it ZANU today , what do you think will happen to you .
My mere message to ZANU PF ,please kindly realise the mistakes and the damage which had been caused to a country which was once a food basket for the whole world ,the people who shared their blood soley for the liberation of the country would never be happy should they rise up today and find that the blacks are scretching each other today instead of celebrating.ZANU PF members ,lead the country appropriate and achive ultimate success, the collition government is over ,now what do you have for the entire people of Zimbabwe, work out and resolve all the mistakes that were caused and probably secure more votes for five years to come.Accept the opposition and understand that you can’t be a strong party without us being the opposition, thats why we had to choose the party to lead the country, all the best ,work hard and achieve more. The auditing for your work will be done sooner after four years ,depending on your hard work and improving the lifes of the people and working with the international community , then sanctions will be over and more votes might go into your basket come next electoins five years to come which is already very close .
khabo, Zimbabwe cannot be any step ahead with all this rigging going on. infact, we make steps backwards all the time. it doesn’t matter whether tswangirai withdraw or not. if zanu stops raping our country, only then will zimbabwe make steps forward. at the minute it is squarely zanu’s fault that we suffer as we do – with or without morgan and the real MDC (not the ncube faction who i hear received truckloads of cattle at his zanu pf given farm when they destroyed our agricultural base).
There are just handful of credible leaders in SADC region whom we can say have independent stand on issues of such nature. The Botswana leader is one of them the rest are not really worth trusting.The problem we have in the region is that there is no leader who is able to provide advise to the other, these guys fear one another. The African culture is so parthetic when it come to providing advice to one another, especially if you are all vested the same powers in your resopective organizations like countries. No one is ever frank to his/her fellow leader even if he/she knows that there is everything wrong with the whole thing. What a shame, this has to chnge if we are to improve our governance in general.