Tsvangirai meets AU observers, church leaders on elections

PRIME Minister Morgan Tsvangirai yesterday met the African Union (AU) election observer team and heads of church denominations to discuss preparations for the forth coming general elections. Zimbabwe is due to hold general elections in the next two months. Tsvangirai is pushing for the elections, which have been set to July 31, to be delayed.
The AU has already dispatched its observers to monitor the environment, before during and after the polls.

The AU team however refused to entertain questions from the media after the closed door meeting.
Tsvangirai’s spokesperson Luke Tamborinyoka said he had told the team that he appreciated their early deployment.

“He (PM) also gave them an update on the political situation in the country beginning with the Constitutional Court ruling and other issues to do with resolutions of SADC,” he said.

Tsvangirai also briefed the team about the on-going voter registration exercise, which is meant to mop up voters who failed to register during the initial exercise conducted last month.

Zimbabwe Heads of Christian Denominations (ZHCD) leader Dr Goodwill Shana told journalists after the meeting the churches were pushing for peaceful as well as free and fair polls which will produce an undisputed outcome.

“The churches are eager to ensure that we have a peaceful election, a credible election which does not have a disputed outcome,” he said.
The ZHCD is made up of the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops Conference, Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe and Zimbabwe Council of Churches.

Shana said the churches had since started a programme called the Ecumenical Peace Observation Initiative which seeks to observe the environment and encouraging unity and oneness among the people ahead of the polls.

He said the churches had also met President Mugabe as well as leaders of other small political parties.
The churches were concerned with sporadic cases of violence but were hopeful that the cases will not spread, he said.

Shana said the country had made progress so far through dialogue among the political parties in Government and it would be critical that they continue to discuss critical issues to avoid conflict. — New Ziana.