President Mugabe in Maputo for summit

summit of Sadc Heads of States and Governments convened to co-ordinate efforts to fund elections in Zimbabwe.

Harmonised elections will be held on July 31 in the wake of the Presidential proclamation made on Thursday.

President Mugabe, who is accompanied by Foreign Affairs Minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi, Defence Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa and several senior Government officials, was met at Maputo International Airport by Ambassador to Mozambique Agrippa Mutambara and Mozambique’s Foreign Affairs Minister Mr Oldemiro Baloi and embassy staff.

The President inspected a guard of honour mounted by the Mozambique Defence Forces before being whisked to his hotel for a briefing.

The summit was mooted at an extra-ordinary Summit of Sadc heads of State and Government that met on the sidelines of the AU’s mid-term Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia last month.

The summit proposal, which had nothing to do with MDC-T’s campaign for poll deferment, was pitched by the bloc’s facilitator to the Global Political Agreement, South African president Jacob Zuma and endorsed by full summit which met on the sidelines of the 21st Ordinary Session of the African Union General Assembly in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on May 26.

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The full summit acknowledged Zimbabwe’s readiness to hold elections saying evidence on the ground showed that nothing precluded the holding of elections in light of progress made to that end.

Sadc executive secretary, Dr Tomaz Salamao, told the media then that the bloc would stand guided by due process and was waiting for the ruling of the Constitutional Court in a case in which Mr Jealousy Mawarire of Harare sought to compel President Mugabe to announce the date for the harmonised elections before the expiry of the life of the Seventh Parliament.

The Constitutional Court subsequently ordered President Mugabe to proclaim the election date and hold the harmonised elections by July 31.

An order the President has since complied with prompting an outcry from MDC-T leader M Morgan Tsvangirai who was angling for a September poll when it is constitutionally impossible to extend the life of the legislature which ends on June 29.

At law, the life of Parliament can only be extended during times of war or when a state of emergency has been declared, two scenarios that do not obtain in Zimbabwe.

Mr Tsvangirai and his coterie of NGO hangers on are also here trying to campaign for poll postponement, a development analysts dismissed as a wild goose chase in the wake of the Constitutional Court ruling and Presidential proclamation of the poll date.