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2005 Elections: attempts to shift focus from addressing national crisis
Zimbabwe Liberators Platform (ZLP)
March 04, 2004

The government announced that parliamentary elections would be held before March next year and Zimbabwe Liberators Platform (ZLP) fears that main political parties will concentrate their energies on winning the elections and shift their attention from addressing the deepening political and socio-economic crisis.

The same conditions of impoverishment and political tension will be carried over to period after the election. There is need to focus on the national crisis and not elections because the crisis of governance is deepening. ZLP's considered view is that without a new electoral framework and a new democratic constitution, the elections will be far from being free and fair.

In the event of electoral fraud, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) will again cry foul and reduce itself to fighting Registrar General Tobaiwa Mudede, a mere civil servant, when the party should be prioritising the fight for electoral and constitutional reform. All elections should at least meet the norms and standards stipulated by the Southern African Development Community - Parliamentary Forum (SADC-PF), a regional organisation of parliamentarians that fights transparency and integrity in electoral processes in the SADC region. With the electoral conditions in Zimbabwe, ZLP is convinced that elections conducted under the current electoral context will not meet the criteria set by forum.

Since the liberation war ended in 1980 when Zimbabwe became independent, State institutions and instruments of power were not transformed and democratised to ensure accountability to the people. The same applies to Rhodesian edicts that remain intact in nature and form. ZLP calls for the transformation and democratisation of State institutions to make them accountable to the people and transparent because ultimately people do not hope for just a change of a party in power.

ZLP calls for the involvement of all stakeholders in a transitional arrangement that will address the national crisis and in which a new democratic constitution will be drafted, a new electoral framework established and elections held. It is political mischief for anyone to view calls for a level playing field before elections as being tantamount to an election boycott.

The government is already seeking political capital out of the crackdown on corrupt businesspeople that shows a shift from land reforms to corruption as the trump card for winning the 2005 elections. ZANU PF's crackdown on corruption should start from the top and deal with heavyweights exposed long back rather than sacrifice small fish to canvass for support. The bankruptcy of the land reform programme has been exposed by the ZANU PF government's failure to crackdown on those heavyweights who amassed more than one farm.

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