adminThe organisation that is headquartered in Kenya, yesterday said interpretation of election time frames and dates was the responsibility of the Constitutional Court not Sadc.
African Union Commission chairperson Dr Nkosasana Dlamini-Zuma on Monday said it was not proper for anyone to “second-guess” Zimbabwe’s courts. PAFL chairman Dr David Nyekorach-Matsanga said Sadc could only advise but not supervise Zimbabwe’s election road map.
“The direct intervention by Sadc to stifle another country’s judicial system must not be taken lightly by those who adhere to the rule of constitutionalism in Africa,” he said.
“Pan African Forum welcomes and fully supports the pronouncement by the African Union Commission chairperson Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma on the controversy surrounding Zimbabwe’s election date. Zimbabweans must be left alone to resolve issues of election dates without outside interference.”
PAFL is composed of scholars, academics, university leaders and African patriotic members and was established to promote and enhance the African renaissance.
Dr Matsanga said Constitutionalism should not be thrown away because of political expediency.
“It is the mandate of the Constitutional Court to interpret matters that are contentious in nature,” he said.
“The interpretation of election time frames and dates are accordingly subjected to scrutiny of the constitutional court of Zimbabwe not by the communiqués issued by political settings. For Sadc to shrink the constitution of member country is interference of the highest level.”
Added Dr Matsanga: “Sadc’s actions are tantamount to meddling into internal affairs of a member state that is coming out of the woods from the violent route that MDC triggered on Zimbabwe.”
He said MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai had called for sanctions from Westerners against his own country that had brought untold suffering on ordinary Zimbabweans.
African opposition political parties, Dr Matsanga said, only agreed to constitutions that favour them.
“They then shrink them as soon as they begin to bite their interests. The court in Zimbabwe did the right thing to interpret the constitution,” he said.
“The moribund Global Political Agreement and all its functions over lived their usefulness. Lots of fatigue had crept in from the MDC mouthpieces that work on the timetables of their western masters.”
Dr Matsanga said by proclaiming July 31 as the election date, President Mugabe was following the legal route.
“It is true that from June 29 there will be no Parliament, no Morgan Tsvangirai, no Welshman Ncube who have been bankrolled by some western nations to strangulate Zimbabweans again,” he said.
“The same Head of State (and Government) of Zimbabwe who happens to be President Mugabe who holds a key to the same Constitution that Sadc wants diluted is the only person mandated by the Constitution to declare the dates of the same elections not Sadc or any amorphous bodies that trot the vast savannah grasslands of Africa multiplying conflicts in every country.”
The PAFL would stand “shoulder by shoulder” with patriotic Zimbabweans not traitors who have “dismembered” Zimbabwe, Dr Matsanga said.
Sadc; at its extra ordinary summit in Maputo, Mozambique; over the weekend urged Justice and Legal Affairs Minister Patrick Chinamasa to seek an extension of the poll deadline to accommodate MDC formations’ proposed reforms.
Minister Chinamasa subsequently filed an application to that effect on Tuesday seeking an extension of the poll date to August 14.
Online Reporter