BY SHARON BUWERIMWE ZIMBABWE is now bound by the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance (ACDEG), which seeks to promote the holding of free and fair elections after President Emmerson Mnangagwa signed the instrument for domestication.
Parliament passed a resolution to approve the charter in March 2019 after Mnangagwa had signed it at his first African Union (AU) summit of Heads of State and government in Kigali, Rwanda, the previous year.
In a statement yesterday, legal think-tank Veritas said Zimbabwe was now a full State party to the ACDEG charter.
“The Foreign Affairs and International Trade ministry has just informed us that the constitutional processes and the AU processes to ratify the ACDEG have been completed,” the legislative watchdog said.
“Last year in September, Veritas expressed concern that Zimbabwe had still not ratified the charter. We pointed out that it was already a long time since it had both been signed by the President and approved by Parliament.
“After further lobbying that procedure has now been completed. Mnangagwa has signed the instrument of ratification and Zimbabwe’s ambassador to the AU deposited it with the chairperson of the AU recently. Upon the deposit of its instrument of ratification, Zimbabwe became a State party bound by the charter.”
The development came at a time when the country is set to hold by-elections next Saturday.
Independent election observer missions have in the past red-flagged the country’s polls as not credible because of failure to domesticate the charter and implement other electoral reforms.
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