SADC appoints Mugabe Vice Chairman

LILONGWE, Malawi – There is an outcry in Zimbabwe to the news that Robert Mugabe has landed the post of Deputy Chairperson of the Southern African Development Community, (SADC) on the back of a massively rigged July 31 election.

Zimbabwe was elected to the position at the on-going 33rd Ordinary Summit for SADC Heads of States and Governments in Lilongwe, Malawi.

A source in the office of the outgoing Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai on Sunday said the party feels betrayed by the regional leaders and there is talk of disengaging in any diplomatic discussions.

The outgoing Deputy Prime Minister Thokozani Khupe went to Malawi, to lobby regional leaders not to accept the disputed Zimbabwean election results. Khupe has been lobbying in Malawi since for the larger part of last week.

The MDC-T is now planning to mobilise regional opposition parties to condemn SADC actions and map a long-term plan to stop the organisation from being used as a breeding ground of dictatorship.

The Southern African Development Community (Sadc) heads of state and government have been metting in Lilongwe, Malawi, this weekend, with Zimbabwe not on the agenda for the first time in as many years.

However, the country still came up for discussion when the chairperson of the Sadc Troika on Politics, Defence and Security, Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, presented his report which was accepted and endorsment of the disputed elections in that extends Robert Mugabe’s 33-year rule by another five years.

“Congratulations to comrade Robert Mugabe for conducting peaceful elections,” said the incoming head of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), President Joyce Banda of Malawi.

“We wish to offer you continued support as a member of the family,” Banda said, to wild cheers from the audience at the start of the 15-nation summit.

Facing doubts of a fair hearing, and difficulties obtaining crucial evidence from authorities, on Friday Zimbabwe’s Movement for Democratic Change withdrew it’s challenge to President Robert Mugabe’s reelection.

Nelson Chamisa, the fourth-ranking party official, told The Associated Press that it was impossible to proceed with Saturday’s hearing without full information and evidence it had sought from election authorities.

“There is no value in us going to the courts without the proof that is beyond doubt,” he said.

Attorney Chris Mhike said even if a last minute ruling was made to force the election body to release the material sought, it left no time for an analysis of voting figures. Chamisa said without the proof it sought from the election body, Saturday’s challenge would likely be thrown out, undermining the opposition’s position.

“We are refusing to give Mugabe legitimacy through his courts,” he said.

After violent and disputed elections in 2008, Mugabe was forced by regional leaders to form a shaky power-sharing coalition with Tsvangirai. But the 89-year-old Mugabe was said to have garnered 61 percent of the presidential vote to Tsvangirai’s 34 percent in the July 31 election.

The longtime president has traditionally appointed Zimbabwe’s judges and has long been accused of packing the judiciary with his sympathizers.

Zimbabwe will be deputising Malawi which assumed the chairmanship of the regional body at the official opening of the summit on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Southern African Development Community leaders have come under intensive attack from regional civil society organizations for what they say its failure to put the welfare of poor people at the center of their discussions.

Coordinator for the People’s Dialogue, Dumezweni Dlamini said in an exclusive interview that the problem is that the heads of state take such summits as merrymaking events sweeping issues poverty and democracy under the carpet.

“SADC summits have been looked at as one of those Christmases for the heads of state where they say ‘let us come and dine and wine’ and not to attack each other. We have never heard any of these heads of state taking on teacher other as to asking saying ‘why are you conducting yourself in this manner while as a region we uphold the principles of democracy, why the outcry in Zimbabwe,” he says.

Dlamini who comes from Swaziland says the SADC leaders are only good at signing declarations after declarations but with no actions.

“In fact we have been seeing much more exclusion of the people on the ground in terms of addressing those issues and it tells us to the point that it is sometimes useless to sign those declarations,” he says.

He says the heads of state consider including people in whatever they do saying no matter minor those people may look they still talk something that affects them therefore it is important that those voices are heard.

“When you talk about the GDP per capita of these countries like where I come from in Swaziland, it says most of the people there are living above a dollar day. But what happens to those people, who are living far below? They are not considered when it comes to that equation. Which means that the GDP per capita in this region does not reflect what is on the ground,” he says.

A board member of the Eastern and Southern African Small Scale Farmer’s Forum Grace Tepula from Zambia says the problem with SADC governments is that they take more care on the people from developed countries who come into the country ‘to deplete our resources’ in terms of investments.

“So our concern from our experience as a rural farmers are the challenges we get like land grabbing , lack of water, the indigenous seed that are being moved away replaced by other seeds that are being introduced on the market in our countries and in the region as a whole,” she says.

Tepula who is also a member of Rural Women Assembly a member says rural farmers need to have seeds that they have been using unlike imposing seeds on them which she says do not last long.

“Another worrying issue is that our ancestral lands are being given to multinational companies because they want to mine forgetting that we are the people who are contributing to the food basket in the region, for our families and our neighbors,” she says.

Collins Magalasi a social commentator in Malawi is also accusing SADC of failing to act of issues affecting ordinary people.

“We have seen SADC becoming a club of the rich, when it is supposed to be a club of the people. SADC needs to bring people back into the discussion issues that affecting people. So if you are talking about whether it is elections or the lake or whatever the issue is has to be where we see the common person,” he says.

But speaking during the official opening of the summit, new chairperson President Joyce Banda of Malawi says that she will strive to put issues of poor people at heart during her tenure.

“No discussion about the poor without the poor. No meetings about the poor without the poor. And so passing of declarations about the poor without the poor,” she said. Zimbabwe Mail