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PM Tsvangirai wants only presidential vote in 2011
17 Dec 2010 at 03:48hrs | Views
MDC president Morgan Tsvangirai said on Thursday that only a presidential vote was needed next year to resolve the power-sharing dispute in his unity government with President Robert Mugabe.
The two were pressured into the coalition by regional leaders after Mugabe's ZANU-PF party lost its parliamentary majority to Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) for the first time in a March 2008 election and Tsvangirai defeated Mugabe in the parallel presidential vote.
Tsvangirai was unable to take power because election authorities held onto results for five weeks and then announced that he had not won by enough votes to avoid a run-off, which he boycotted accusing Mugabe's supporters of violence.
Zimbabwe's next presidential and parliamentary elections would normally be held in 2013, but Tsvangirai said earlier this month that parliamentary elections could not be held until there had been a referendum on a new constitution and an election commission had been set up.
"The next election should be solely for the disputed presidential election of 2008," Tsvangirai told reporters after a meeting of his party's top decision-making national council.
"So there is no need to go for harmonised elections when we have not resolved the disputed presidential election first."
Tsvangirai spoke as ZANU-PF prepared for its annual congress in the eastern city of Mutare that will endorse Mugabe, 86, as its candidate in the election he wants to be held by mid-year.
ZANU-PF and MDC legislators are against elections that will cut short their five-year term for a second time. The previous term ended prematurely in 2008 following a 2005 vote.
The next election will be the eighth major vote in Zimbabwe since 2000 and critics say rushed polls without political reforms, including a new constitution guaranteeing basic rights, would favour Mugabe and ZANU-PF, who have held power since independence from Britain in 1980.
Tsvangirai also accused Mugabe of deploying members of the security forces in the countryside before the vote to intimidate villagers. The MDC made major gains in ZANU-PF's traditional rural strongholds in the last elections
The two were pressured into the coalition by regional leaders after Mugabe's ZANU-PF party lost its parliamentary majority to Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) for the first time in a March 2008 election and Tsvangirai defeated Mugabe in the parallel presidential vote.
Tsvangirai was unable to take power because election authorities held onto results for five weeks and then announced that he had not won by enough votes to avoid a run-off, which he boycotted accusing Mugabe's supporters of violence.
Zimbabwe's next presidential and parliamentary elections would normally be held in 2013, but Tsvangirai said earlier this month that parliamentary elections could not be held until there had been a referendum on a new constitution and an election commission had been set up.
"The next election should be solely for the disputed presidential election of 2008," Tsvangirai told reporters after a meeting of his party's top decision-making national council.
Tsvangirai spoke as ZANU-PF prepared for its annual congress in the eastern city of Mutare that will endorse Mugabe, 86, as its candidate in the election he wants to be held by mid-year.
ZANU-PF and MDC legislators are against elections that will cut short their five-year term for a second time. The previous term ended prematurely in 2008 following a 2005 vote.
The next election will be the eighth major vote in Zimbabwe since 2000 and critics say rushed polls without political reforms, including a new constitution guaranteeing basic rights, would favour Mugabe and ZANU-PF, who have held power since independence from Britain in 1980.
Tsvangirai also accused Mugabe of deploying members of the security forces in the countryside before the vote to intimidate villagers. The MDC made major gains in ZANU-PF's traditional rural strongholds in the last elections
Source - Byo24
