🚀 go-pugleaf

Church officials say it's unlikely Zimbabwean election will be fair


Jan-22-2008 (450 words) xxxi

By Bronwen Dachs
Catholic News Service

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (CNS) -- Church officials said it's unlikely
Zimbabwe will hold a free and fair presidential election this year, 
since Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has refused demands for a new
constitution to be implemented before the poll.

"Mugabe knows he can play games and get away with it," said Bishop 
Kevin
Dowling of Rustenburg, South Africa.

The 83-year-old Zimbabwean president "has the security forces on his 
side, and his opposition has no protection under the law, so he doesn't 
need to make any concessions," Bishop Dowling told Catholic News 
Service 
Jan. 21.
Mugabe has rejected the opposition's requests that the election, 
scheduled for March, be postponed to June to allow for a new 
constitution to be put in place.

Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe since its independence from Great 
Britain 
in 1980, "is untrustworthy and does not intend to make significant 
changes to bring stability to the country," said the bishop, noting 
that 
until a new constitution that protects human rights is in place "there 
can be no free and fair elections."

At mid-January meetings in Zimbabwe's capital, Harare, Mugabe rejected 
all suggestions made by South African President Thabo Mbeki, who since 
March has been mediating between Mugabe's government and the opposition 
Movement for Democratic Change.

"Mugabe has been stringing Mbeki along all this time," said Bishop 
Dowling, a member of the Solidarity Peace Trust, an ecumenical group of 
church organizations from Zimbabwe and South Africa.

Alouis Chaumba, head of Zimbabwe's Catholic Commission for Justice and
Peace, said he was "not surprised the talks (Mbeki's mediation) have 
failed as the (Zimbabwean) government doesn't negotiate in good faith."

Zimbabwe "can't afford to have another election rejected by the
international community," he told CNS Jan. 21. "But, as things stand 
now, there is no doubt that Mugabe will win elections in March."

Zimbabwe has the world's highest inflation rate and chronic shortages 
of
food, fuel and most basic goods.

"The mood in the country is very bleak and people are obsessed with
day-to-day survival," Chaumba said. The people "cannot access cash, and 
our incomes are eroded every day," he added.

"Despite a good rainy season, farmers had no fertilizer, so crops have
failed again," Chaumba said. "Electricity and water are in short 
supply, 
and there has been an outbreak of diarrhea in the major cities."

Hospitals around the country are paralyzed as doctors and nurses strike 
for more pay, and hospitals face "a chronic shortage of drugs," Chaumba 
said. Most schools "have less than half their quota of teachers, who 
can't afford the bus fare to get to work."

"Nothing is in good shape," he added.