….As Mnangagwa assumes SADC chairmanship in August
By Kwedu News
HARARE, ZIMBABWE – Former opposition Citizen Coalition for Change (CCC) party leader Nelson Chamisa has urged the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to facilitate a peaceful resolution to the disputed August 2023 general elections, which he still claims did not produce a credible and legitimate government.
Ironically, President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who is at the centre of dispute, will take over as SADC chairperson from Angolan President João Lourenço in August 2024. Zimbabwe will also host SADC’s 44th ordinary summit.
In a statement released on May 27, 2024, Chamisa emphasized that the elections were marred by electoral fraud and manipulation, which SADC, the African Union, the European Union, and other international organizations have universally condemned.
“As you are aware, following the shambolic and disputed August 2023 elections, we held nationwide consultations with you, the citizens, and all other relevant stakeholders, on the ways and means to resolve the electoral fraud,” he said. “You, the citizens of Zimbabwe, are very clear and firm on the position that the elections were improperly conducted, indeterminate, and produced a manipulated outcome.
“This position is supported and confirmed by SADC, the African Union, the European Union, the Commonwealth, COMESA, and all other intergovernmental organizations that deployed election observer missions to Zimbabwe. There is no other election in the history of elections in this country that has invited resounding and universal condemnation as the August 2023 elections. This matter must be resolved so that the country can have proper elections that produce a proper government from the citizens,” he said.
Chamisa, who claims to have received a mandate from over two million citizens, says he has written to SADC seeking their intervention in resolving the governance crisis and leadership dispute. “Fellow citizens, as your presidential choice, you, in your millions (nearly over two million), gave a clear mandate, albeit in a disputed and contested election. That mandate cannot be abdicated, abandoned, or surrendered.
“Upon and with your mandate, on September 26, 2023, we wrote to our regional body, SADC, the guarantor of the values and principles of the aspirations of the ‘common agenda’ and ‘common will’ of the people of Southern Africa. On October 23, 2023, SADC responded to our request and advised that they were giving the matter due consideration.
“Meanwhile, we have noted the various meetings the leadership of SADC has held, including the latest Extraordinary Summit of the Organ Troika on March 23, 2024, in Lusaka, Zambia.” Chamisa said. He also says he has engaged in nationwide consultations with citizens and stakeholders and has allegedly developed a roadmap for resolving the disputed elections.
The statement comes after Chamisa’s party, the CCC, claims it has been facing a crackdown from the government apparatus, with many of its members being killed, arrested, and intimidated. “The problem of the manipulated elections that produced a government without a mandate from the citizens has since culminated in high levels of intolerance, violations, repression, illegal recalls of citizen representatives (of the very same disputed election, in itself, an unprecedented move and an encyclopedic infraction of democratic tenets), unlawful arrests, and persecution of citizens upon all other kinds of archaic intimidatory and suppressive manifestations of the lack of mandate,” he said.
He also highlighted some of the economic challenges faced by Zimbabweans. “We have a tanking economy; systemic corruption; 49% of the population living in extreme poverty; $1.8 billion lost to looting annually; $100 million worth of gold smuggled monthly; galloping hyperinflation; half of the population that is food insecure; over three million Zimbabweans forced to migrate; 89% unemployment; and disputed national processes and elections,” he said.
Chamisa said there cannot be any talk of the next 2028 elections or a viable and stable future for this country without resolving the August 2023 dispute, ‘the broken past, and disputed politics’. “It remains our hope and indeed your hope that all these concerns will be addressed with urgency and seriousness,” he said.
