adminWE hail Sadc for not only standing firm by resisting Western pressure to condemn the July 31 harmonised elections, but by moving to elect Zimbabwe deputy chair and in so doing putting our country at the centre of regional affairs for the next three years.By being elected deputy chair, Zimbabwe is automatically set to assume chairpersonship of the bloc in August next year when Malawian leader Dr Joyce Banda’s term ends, which will be the first time Zimbabwe will chair the organisation since its transformation from the Southern Africa Development Co-ordination Conference on August 17, 1992 in Windhoek, Namibia.
Not only that, as deputy chair we join the chairperson Malawi and immediate past chairperson Mozambique as members of the Summit Troika.
Sadc has two Troikas; the other one being the Organ Troika which is chaired by Namibia, deputised by Lesotho and the immediate past chair Tanzania.
The Organ Troika, however, reports to the Summit Troika which makes our election all the more significant.
So over the next three years; in the first year we deputise; in the second year we assume chairpersonship; and in the third year we retain membership of Summit Troika as immediate past chair.
We have no doubt that Africa will be richer for President Mugabe’s leadership and guidance.
This regional accolade, coming as it did on the back of the widely hailed harmonised elections that gave President Mugabe and Zanu-PF a mandate reminiscent of the historic win of the inaugural polls of 1980, could not have come at a better time as it gives President Mugabe, the only leader cut from the fabric of the founding fathers, the chance to impart his wisdom to the region collectively, and member-states individually.
The transformation was quite dramatic, from an agenda item only a few months back to driving the regional agenda henceforth.
And we put it all down to the support of our brothers and sisters in the region without whom we would not be where we are today.
Today, President Mugabe stands vindicated at home and abroad.
The opposition that claimed to be the future securely in the dustbin along with its yesteryear politics of Western appease-ment.
President Mugabe stands on the cusp of regional politics to dispense guidance and leadership like the senior statesman that he is.
Africa has, at last, found its voice, and the message Sadc has sent to the Westerners who have been questioning the legitimacy of our elections is clear; talk is cheap we do not only have trust in President Mugabe’s leadership in Zimbabwe, but in the region as well.
It is high time Westerners respected African opinion.
We are not a child race that needs chaperones for its affairs to be deemed admissible.
We spoke, you should listen.
Never again will we allow you to dictate to us how we should conduct our affairs.
We say so because we are aware of the enormous pressure that was brought to bear on Sadc leaders by Westerners who wanted them to tar and feather our country for rejecting the MDCs, behind whom the Westerners hid, in the just-ended harmonised elections.
But the region made us all proud in showing, just as they did by endorsing the harmonised elections, that they do not run anyone’s errands.
Let this be the new creed in southern Africa, a region that shares a proud history of decolonisation beginning with the Front Line States that ushered in political independence throughout the region.
Now is the time to march together to a common future of holistic independence.
And the Westerners are advised to remove the unjustified impediments they threw in our path, in the form of their ruinous sanctions regimes.
They, particularly the EU, pledged to be guided by African opinion.
Well Africa has not only spoken, it has acted let’s see if you respect Africa’s voice.
Online Reporter