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Zimbabwe:
Mugabe Appoints Committee to Prepare for General Election
Peta Thornycroft,
VOA
September 15, 2004
http://www.voanews.com
Zimbabwe's president,
Robert Mugabe, has appointed a committee to oversee voting boundaries
for the general election next year. The opposition says appointment
of the committee, without consultation, is a violation of electoral
principles that Mr. Mugabe agreed to at a recent regional summit.
Mr. Mugabe has
appointed high court Judge George Chiweshe to head a commission
to draw up constituency boundaries for the general election next
March. Mr. Chiweshe's impartiality has long been questioned by legal
analysts and human rights lawyers.
Zimbabwe's main
opposition, the Movement for Democratic Change, or MDC, charged
that the Mugabe-appointed commission will not be impartial.
The MDC's legal
secretary, David Coltart, said Mr. Mugabe had agreed, at the recent
Southern African Development Community summit, that next year's
election would be overseen by impartial electoral authorities to
ensure that it would be free and fair. Creation of the new commission,
Mr. Coltart says, goes against what Mr. Mugabe signed on to.
In August, the
MDC said it had suspended participation in all elections until the
government reformed election laws and repeals what it terms repressive
media and security laws.
The MDC is concerned
about the drawing up of voting districts in Zimbabwe. It says establishing
voting boundaries is vital to a fair election because most urban
dwellers support the opposition, and many rural areas support the
ruling ZANU-PF. In the disputed presidential elections of 2002,
hundreds of thousands of potential urban voters were refused registration
or were turned away on polling day.
Reginald Matchaba
Hove, chairman of the non-governmental organization Zimbabwe Electoral
Support Network, said the appointment of the commission, without
consultation, was a betrayal of the commitment Mr. Mugabe made at
the SADC summit to adhere to its electoral principals.
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