Zanu-PF adamant elections should be held this year

Global Political Agreement signed by all parties in the inclusive Government, writes Takunda Maodza from PRETORIA, South Africa.
Addressing a seminar on the perspectives of Zanu-PF on the election roadmap held at the Africa Institute of South Africa in Pretoria yesterday, Politburo member Professor Jonathan Moyo made it clear that the revolutionary party would not accept attempts by the MDC formations to delay the polls.
Prof Moyo is leading a high-powered Zanu-PF delegation that arrived here on Tuesday to set the record straight on events in Zimbabwe ahead of today’s Sadc extra ordinary summit.
“Our view on the so-called election roadmap is that it should be based on the GPA and one of the outstanding features of the GPA is the constitution-making process,” he said.
Prof Moyo said the constitution-making process should be completed quickly to enable the holding of elections this year.
“We should stick to the GPA and have elections as soon as possible. You cannot continue to have a Government of National Unity, which is dysfunctional. You must have elections to clear that. If you continue to put the country into an election mood you destabilise that country, you create tension and you invite an envelop of uncertainty,” he said.
Added Prof Moyo: “It is obvious that elections should be held in 2011 in terms of the GPA and this is not a Zanu-PF view. We would like to make it clear that this is not a Zanu-PF declared idea but that it is the GPA idea.”
He said Zanu-PF was aware the MDC formations wanted the elections to be delayed for their own benefit.
Prof Moyo noted that it was now a tendency by the MDC formations to raise non-existent issues before polls.
“Since the emergency of the MDC, every election we had they have raised the need for minimum requirements and for a roadmap,” he said.
In demanding an election roadmap outside the GPA, Prof Moyo said, the MDC formations were trying through the back door to re-negotiate the Sadc-brokered political agreement itself.
He said such attempts have been evidenced by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s so-called Government Work Programme (March 2009) and the recent call by the MDC formations for an election roadmap.
In the GWP and the election roadmap, the MDC formations are raising new issues outside the GPA.
Prof Moyo said it was evident that the MDC formations were being used by the West, particularly Britain and the US.
The British Government has already confirmed that it is working with Sadc to come up with an election roadmap in Zimbabwe.
Prof Moyo said calls for security sector reform by the MDC formations and claims of violence were all meant to lie to the world that conditions were not conducive for elections in Zimbabwe.
Another member of the delegation, Ambassador Christopher Mutsvangwa said it was shocking that in a bid to avoid elections the MDC formations were now raising the issue of security sector reform as part of the election roadmap.
“The Zimbabwean army has an impeccable record in Africa. It is an army with a proud record of achievements,” he said.
Ambassador Mutsvangwa said it was clear that all the noise about security sector reforms was coming from the West and not the MDC formations themselves as a way of pushing for an illegal regime change in Zimbabwe
He said Zimbabweans should be left to resolve their differences without interference from the erstwhile colonisers.
Ahead of today’s summit, MDC-T and its functionaries here were making false claims of violence in Zimbabwe in a bid to delay the holding of elections to an extent of lying that there is a coup in Harare.
Zanu-PF Politburo member, Cde Oppah Michinguri, who is also a Jomic member, has however, made it clear that all political parties to the GPA were equally responsible for the violence experienced in the country in the past.