21st Movement demands Mugabe resignation

This February 23rd, a Saturday will coincide with President Robert Mugabe's birthday where he will be celebrating his 90th and preparing to launch his bid for another five-year term as President of Zimbabwe.

The 21st Global Free Zimbabwe Protest Movement will be demonstrating in all international capitals to urge him retire instead and also to demand assurances from the SADC facilitator that SADC will not allow the next election to be held without reforms media reforms, an early-deployment of monitors, and a verifiably neutral Police force, no militias, and soldiers confined to their barracks.

Latest Press reports attributed to President Jacob Zuma's facilitator, Lindiwe Zulu, are that SADC would go along with Zimbabwean elections without any further reforms provided the three political parties in the GPA agree that there will not be any political violence.

We do not believe there are any circumstances under which Zanu-PF can assure us or anybody else that there will not be repeat of the 2008 election violence, unless there is a combined military and civilian SADC monitoring force in the country starting now.

The electorate in Zimbabwe has been traumatised in the last few elections, and some mothers are still grieving for their sons and daughters whose deaths have never been atoned for, with the killers still roaming the villages and threatening them.

We need a reassuring presence of international monitors, and civil society monitors able to travel to any party of the country at any time, starting now, to give those villagers assurance that they will be able to vote freely.

We know, and there have been reports that Zanu-PF has been telling villagers that they will know who they vote for, and that there would be repercussions similar to 2008 for not voting for Zanu-PF.

There have also been reports that chiefs and headmen have been taking down the names of their residents and giving them to Zanu-PF, as part of the intimidation.

The need for the implementation of the outstanding GPA reforms before credible free, fair, and indisputable elections can be held cannot be left to the whims of Zanu-PF. Thinking that Zanu PF has finally met it's Damascus moment would be a grave fallacy on the party of the Facilitator.

It is against their nature as they have shown that they can use whatever dirty trick in the book they can come across  to stay in power.  Without proper monitoring, the upcoming watershed elections will be no different from 2008.

We are therefore demanding that international and civil society monitors be given freedom to travel to all parts of the country and reassure the voters as well as to ascertain for themselves the state of intimidation in the population, starting now.

A clear plan of how police and soldiers are going to work in a non-partisan manner will also have to be produced and in place well in good time, like now, if elections are going to be held as soon as the parties are indicating.

We are also aware that the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission secretariat that is tasked with running this election is the same one that pronounced as free and fair the 2008 election which SADC and the African Union later said was not free and fair.

We believe this secretariat is biased, as has already been exposed in the Zimbabwe Democracy Institute report which showed how the secretariat in Harare and also in the provinces was not recruited transparently.

For the sake of reassurance, given that there is not going to be strict adherence to the SADC's own Code of Conduct for elections, the minimum that the SADC should insist on is the replacing of the secretariat staff with an transparently appointed neutral force.

On the media, so far we have not been given any confidence that the state media, meaning the Herald Newspaper  and its sister newspapers in the provinces and the ZBC radio and television services - the only broadcasters with national reach - will not continue campaigning for Zanu-PF.

There is no way that the the three parties can be comfortable with the the obtaining situation, and we cannot be confident that the people of Zimbabwe will not be exposed to the 2008 scenario, unless strict measures are put in place.

We are therefore demanding action now from the facilitator, President Jacob Zuma, the SADC chairman, Armando Guebuzza and the African Union Commission chairperson, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma of getting these assurances and assuring us of a rapidly deployable monitoring force.

Thank you.

Den Moyo Chairman - 21st Global Free Zimbabwe Protest Movement  

Yours faithfully

Makusha Mugabe
Information co-ordinator - 21st Global Zimbabwe Protest Movement