Back to Index

‘No to donors for poll bodies’
The Herald (Zimbabwe)
July 22, 2004

http://www.herald.co.zw/index.php?id=34062&pubdate=2004-07-22

Election bodies in the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) region should be funded nationally and not depend on donors who will seek to control and influence them, President Mugabe said yesterday.

Cde Mugabe said a major challenge facing election commissions in the region was inadequate funding which exposed the bodies to donor influence or control by powerful Western countries.

"I am aware of the challenges that confront you, which include under-funding. Yet, there still is need to fight the dependency syndrome, both as a group and as individual election bodies.

"Dependency prevents us from being free and reduces the quality of our elections.

"It also weakens our ability to think and come up with effective strategies for dealing with our problems," he told participants at the sixth annual conference of the Sadc Electoral Commissions Forum in Victoria Falls.

Cde Mugabe said Sadc would find no problem to ensure electoral bodies in the region were adequately funded because most member states had at one time or another complained about interference by non-governmental organisations.

He expressed shock at the paltry US$5 000 (about Z$26,75 million) that each Sadc member state is required to contribute to the forum and said if need be, the amount should be increased to US$500 000 or even US$1 million (Z$5,35 billion).

President Mugabe said elections were the yardstick of democracy but democracy could not be transplanted from one country to another because each country had its own distinct historical, cultural and socio-economic conditions.

Sadc had to come up with a democratic dispensation that suits its people and takes into account historical and socio-economic contexts of the respective member states.

"We must guard against being misled by some Western countries that portray themselves as beacons and unquestioned paragons of democracy and whose systems are fake models which they coerce our developing countries to copy."

Cde Mugabe said the integrity of the institutions managing elections was critical as well as their capacity to deliver impartial, free and transparent elections.

This depended on their composition and mandate, which should be defined and protected in the constitution.

Most Sadc countries had made progress in this regard with regular multi-party elections and legal and institutional set-ups which gave birth to election management bodies, said Cde Mugabe.

He said elections alone were not sufficient in developing democracy because although they could contribute to conflict resolution, they could also exacerbate conflict.

This called for clear rules peculiar to individual countries.

The President said in Africa the liberal representative democracy model, which is found in most industrialised countries, was the one being advocated.

The model views elections as an important hub of democracy with civil and political liberties such as freedom of expression, freedom of association and freedom of movement.

But Cde Mugabe said it should be questioned whether the mere fact of holding regular elections and granting political and civil rights brought democracy.

"Liberal democracy restricts itself to the first generation of rights, that is, political and civil rights.

"In Africa, this ignores people’s rights to a decent standard of living, and to economic and gainful employment.

"It also ignores people’s rights to social amenities like education and health care although these issues are of primary importance in developed countries.

"While we should not detract from the fact that Africa, Sadc included, needs democratisation, we should reflect and weigh the advantages and disadvantages of the democracy models we practice," said Cde Mugabe.

He said democracy was a contested concept and most people, even those who violated it, wanted to be associated with it, including regimes that seek regional and global control.

"Lest we forget, colonial states practised a racial and exclusive type of democracy among Europeans only, while Africans were denied political, civil, socio-economic and cultural rights."

Cde Mugabe said Sadc countries, including Zimbabwe, had to wage armed struggles to attain independence and bring democracy and economic freedom to their people.

"In the United States of America, the champion of liberal democracy, the liberal democratic model co-existed for many years with slavery. Civil rights were only extended to African-Americans in the 1960s, and to this day that minority continues to be a marginalised group.

"For regional hegemonic purposes during the Cold War, the USA and other industrialised powers supported undemocratic regimes which looted their countries and violated the human rights of the people under them."

President Mugabe said these Western countries aggressively pushed their own concepts and forms of democracy onto African countries. "As Electoral Management Bodies of Sadc, there is need to be wary of the machinations of born-again democrats trying to influence our democratic processes for their benefit."

Cde Mugabe said democracy and elections could not work in a poor and undeveloped country where people live in abject poverty.

"Is democracy complete when the most needful and vulnerable of our people cannot participate in, or have influence over, the electoral process?

"Does democracy exist when powerful nations seek to influence political events in our countries by supporting opposition parties or by deliberately sowing seeds of discontent?

"Does unconstitutional regime change constitute a democratic process?

"It is my hope that these and other questions will be deliberated on during the course of your business," Cde Mugabe told the participants.

He said he believed that for elections to be meaningful, they must be supported by certain socio-economic and political conditions such as economic well-being and social welfare.

Cde Mugabe said he was glad that Sadc member states were currently engaged in consultations on the draft Sadc principles and guidelines governing democratic elections.

Government has proposed electoral reforms in line with the Sadc guidelines and these include the creation of an independent electoral commission and voting in one day as opposed to two days.

Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.

TOP