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Cde Khaya Moyo who is a career diplomat, said imposing terms of reference on a sovereign state was an insult.
He made the remarks to Norway’s Ambassador to Zimbabwe Ms Ingebjorg Stofring when she paid a courtesy call on him today.
Norway is one of the countries that give financial support through the UN.
“You cannot give support because you have put down conditionalities. I don’t think that is proper. We are a sovereign state…you cannot say you want to do some fact-finding before you give us aid.
“The point is that we have an electoral body headed by a judge with a full team and they know what requirements they need to conduct elections. Surely you cannot tell them that ‘look we don’t take what you are telling us. We are coming ourselves to fact-find’. That is unheard of. That is an insult,” said Cde Khaya Moyo.
He said if the UN wanted to assist they were supposed to be guided by what ZEC requested than setting conditions.
Ambassador Stofring said the pre-conditions for poll assistance by the UN were the standard world over.
“To my understanding, that is the standard procedure. I thought there was a dialogue between Zimbabwe and the UN regarding this…..I think this is just universal,” said Ambassador Stofring.
Cde Khaya Moyo said Zimbabwe was going to have peaceful elections because the leadership has been calling for peace and tolerance.
Online Reporter