via SA: Our work in Zimbabwe is done – City Press. Carien du Plessis @carienduplessis 11 August 2013 14:00
President Jacob Zuma is expected to inform the Southern African Development Community (SADC) next weekend that the four-year facilitation process, which he headed, is over, following the conclusion of Zimbabwe’s elections.
A source close to the process told City Press: “As far as South Africa is concerned, we have ended mediation in Zimbabwe.”
SADC heads of state will gather for a two-day summit in Lilongwe, Malawi on Saturday where they will focus on the recent elections.
President Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania, who heads the SADC organ that was concerned with Zimbabwe, is due to present the regional observer mission’s final report.
Almost 600 observers from the region monitored the elections.
Based on the report, South Africa will officially be released from its mediation task, the source said. The regional body is also expected to lobby Western countries like Britain and the US to drop sanctions against Zimbabwe as part of a plan to help its economic recovery.
“We want to keep Zimbabweans in Zimbabwe and the country must be able to feed its people. If there are sanctions, it leads to more people fleeing because of the economic conditions,” he said.
Britain and the US questioned the validity of the elections soon after Robert Mugabe’s re-election was announced last Saturday.
The final SADC report, the source said, is set to focus on how elections were peaceful and free.
There will be less emphasis on problems with the fairness of the process, which SADC questioned in its preliminary report released late last week.
The summit is set to conclude “the elections have been fair and peaceful and . . . reflect the will of the people”, said the source.
“The (summit’s) final statement will say something to the effect that all parties must give the internal processes a chance to run their course. No external audit of the elections will be accepted by SADC,” he said.
Botswana is the only country in the 14-member body that has called for an audit, but it is most likely to be overruled.
Jakkie Cilliers, the executive director at the Institute for Security Studies, said Zuma had enough domestic challenges and would be happy to let go of his facilitation role.
“Nobody in the region has the time and energy to invest in this issue any longer,” Cilliers said.
He said Zuma had built an alliance of nations in the region to help keep the country in check.
SADC and the African Union, which has also given the election a preliminary thumbs up despite concerns, “always choose stability over democracy and they have done so again”, Cilliers said. He said an external challenge of Zimbabwe’s election results could cause instability in the country and the region.
“It is, in a sense, a reflection of reality more than it is a choice, given the challenge that you face of an obstructionist leader who holds on to power by any means.”
Former president Thabo Mbeki, who helped Zimbabwe broker the Global Political Agreement in 2008 that led to a unity government, on Monday told students at his African Leadership Institute that Zimbabweans had the right to “self-determination”.
“There has been a sustained campaign before the (Zimbabwe) elections to discredit them before they happen,” Mbeki said.
COMMENTS
Thank you again South Africa!!!…..be prepared for more cross border illegals…….and tell your president to release that report that shows the 2002 elections were not free fair either…your high court even orders the release. You will also be going down the pan the process has started.
What’s new , Zuma is weak, a liar , corrupt and riddled with greed along with the rest of SADC with the exception of Botswana. So Zuma must be prepared to have another 2 million Zimbabweans enter South Africa to seek employment.
Chiwaridro
Please please give us peace its to much now, are Zimbabweans in South Africa only blacks and are they boarder jumpers, please be careful with someone of your personal feelings towards the loss of MDC to Zanu PF
Want more if MDC had won you would be worse off, so please toned down and convince us that MDC is good, bashing the same people you want support from.
Where they no South Africans living in Zimbabwe before after and even now so shut up Buti..
As for that Botswana who does not know they are backed by American ask Malema.
The Americans even built an army base there to attack Zimbabwe years ago so who is fooling who
Botswana must shut up idiot and voestek, look who the president is father, son, brother and so on, an you think thats change
How many of them have O levels
Leave the Zimbabweans to explore and expand their minds by travelling working anywhere in the world in return Zimbabwe will benefit and in fact
those zimbos that border jump are MDC people that are not educated,stupid fools and lazy to even farm on free land and they prefer to stand on the streets of Jhb and cry foul, yet back home they will never be seen standing an begging.
Botswana stands no chance when it comes to Zimbabwe
Cowards, have they been to war or even peace keeping
Bush men aah sis man those ones it will take Zimbabwe only 7 hours to clean them up and even colonise them.
The Zimbabwean crisis has never needed South African mediation; it has always needed us Zimbabweans to rise up against the tyrant if we are sure we are not happy with its handling of our affairs. Social unrest will eventually come now that the same devil is on the helm.
Kondo you are spoton. The hour is fast approaching. The people must not fight for but for their self-determination.
Sorry fellow Patriots. It is Morris who is spoton, not myself. The people must fight for their right to choose their leaders (leaders who are answerable to the people) and their right to a decent life (NOT a life where we only wish for free maize handouts from ZANU(PF)as the best thing in our lives).
what facilitation process,,it never started
Iliked the comment from MDC-T that our case with SADC an AU can be compared to a referee who throws away the whistle tojoin the other team just because of fear of the other team’s Holigans.
Having failed to see that the GPA was implemented, having betrayed the Zimbabwean people he is now standing down. He is a corrupt womanising failure.
SA has failed Zimbabwe spectacularly. Zuma will go down in history as a spineless traitor. He had a good chance to save these elections by backing Lindiwe-Zulu when she called for postponement, instead of which he gave her a public rebuke, the coward.
zimba fo life
Shame MDC you were given a political wake up, just to back to the drawing board ask your administrator’s what went wrong and work from there
This round you lost it fair an square try next time with out Morgan, just maybe you will make it
Haaaahaaaa Vivia Zanu PF
Oh why blame Zuma for what blame us the people who voted and support Zanu PF
Its amazing to see the number of MDC people reading this site
My question to you all did you vote if not please shut up and go a hang.
You thought that the western media propaganda would fool us no no we are not stupid
Zanu PF is the real deal rigged or not we won
It’s like a football match one can score with the hand of God and win the world cup
Why did MDC use the hand of God and vote.