ZAPU president Dumiso Dabengwa says his party wants the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to deploy a peace-keeping force to Zimbabwe ahead of the next general elections.
The ex-home Affairs Minister said Tuesday that elections should be held next year, arguing that the power-sharing government between Zanu PF and the two MDC factions was ill-conceived and not working.
“SADC, in addition to its observer mission, should have a police monitoring force deployed to ensure that there is no intimidation and that people vote freely,” Dabengwa told a Washington video conference from Johannesburg.
Dabengwa said in the absence of state-sponsored violence witnessed in the 2008 elections, intimidation and retribution, there was no way President Robert Mugabe can win the next round of balloting.
“I foresee a situation where by the haggling in the inclusive government can never end. Give it two more years; the governing parties will still be fighting each other. We believe the only way out is a new poll,” added Dabengwa.
Also speaking from Johannesburg at the same symposium organised by Freedom House to review the operations of the unity government two years on, MDC-T parliamentary chief whip, Innocent Gonese, said his party also wanted elections next year that will produce a clear-cut winner.
Gonese said while his party was concerned at the slow pace of reform and implementation of the Global Political Agreement, it was pleased that the power sharing government had made “considerable strides” in turning the economy around.
“Obviously we are expecting SADC to play a very big role to ensure that the elections are going to produce an indisputable outcome,” Gonese told the conference.
President Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai have both sounded the polling bell in recent months, telling their party activists to brace for fresh elections next year.
But some analysts are sceptical over the country’s preparedness for a new round of voting.
Political commentator Takura Zhangazha, who also took part in the video panel, differed sharply with both Dabengwa and Gonese saying the electorate was simply not ready to go to the polls just as yet.
If anything, Zhangazha said, Zimbabwe might end up with another negotiated government.
Despite intense lobbying by both Zanu PF and the MDC-T on elections next year, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission has all but ruled out this possibility saying it needs at least 18 months to clean up the widely-discredited voters roll.
It also says it has not financial wherewithal to conduct the balloting.