GPA Zim’s only electoral roadmap: Charamba

MDC-T to initiate a parallel process are tantamount to rigging the Sadc-brokered concord, Presidential spokesperson Mr George Charamba, has said.
His sentiments follow moves by MDC-T to push through an alternative roadmap that schedules elections for around May next year.
President Mugabe has already said elections will be held this year.
MDC-T is trying to drum up support for its position ahead of a Sadc Organ on Politics, Defence and Security meeting in Lusaka, Zambia, next month.
Yesterday, Mr Charamba said MDC-T was making false claims of political violence against Zanu-PF in the vain hope of deferring elections to next year.
Police are on record as saying most of the political violence cases on their books are attributable to MDC-T supporters and people linked to that party.
Said Mr Charamba: “MDC-T, through its secretary-general Tendai Biti, is trying to rewrite the roadmap.
“The GPA is a roadmap. It has areas, activities and timelines and that makes it quintessentially a roadmap. It is exactly that and nothing else.
“What we are seeing in MDC-T is an attempt to create a roadmap out of a roadmap and it does not make sense. The roadmap that they are proposing will push elections to May next year. This is a plea for revising the GPA and an attempt to abuse Sadc to legitimise such a plea.”
In a report to President Jacob Zuma, Mr Biti urged the Sadc Troika to “persuade Sadc to help Zimbabwe draw up guidelines for free and fair elections”.
He further proposed that Sadc should urgently appoint an Electoral Observer Commission to Zimbabwe to oversee and guarantee the “proper implementation of the roadmap”.
Mr Charamba said Mr Biti’s communication “should be dismissed with the contempt it deserves”.
“This man is trying to rig the GPA by replacing it with his own wished roadmap. His roadmap is a plea communicated through Sadc to delay elections until May 2012.
“This is the line MDC-T is taking. We are going to the Sadc double troika meeting in the last week of March and MDC-T’s hope is that the issue of the revised roadmap will carry the day. The President will oppose that,” Mr Charamba said.
He said MDC-T was, as usual, raising the issue of violence in a futile attempt to postpone the elections.
In his report, Mr Biti stresses the need for Zimbabwe to conduct its elections in line with Sadc electoral guidelines.
Mr Charamba responded to this saying: “Biti seems not to remember that Zimbabwe was the first country in the region to domesticate the Sadc guidelines on elections.
“Our electoral regime is far stronger than the guidelines.”
The GPA calls for the establishment of a Parliamentary Select Committee on Constitution Making, public hearings and consultations on what should go into the proposed constitution, convening of all-stakeholders’ conferences, and holding of a referendum on the draft before elections are held.
However, the adoption of a new constitution is not a prerequisite for holding general elections as the electorate can still go to the ballot if the draft is rejected in the referendum.
Furthermore, President Mugabe is constitutionally empowered to call for elections at any time in his capacity as Head of State and Government.

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