Which planet is this guy from? Did he even believe himself? I will not even dignify such a statement with an attempted explanation. Someone should just ask the President to wake up and smell the coffee. He should ask the millions of Zimbabweans in his country why they are there. SADC met over the weekend and came up with a very weak communique which, although it shows signs of movement on Zimbabwe, still falls far short of what is required, given the increasingly worsening situation. Section 14 of the SADC communique states that: " The Summit urged the electoral authorities in Zimbabwe that verification and release of results are expeditiously done in accordance with the due process of law. Summit also urged all parties in the electoral process in Zimbabwe to accept the results when they are announced. By due process of law, Summit understood to mean that: The verification and counting must be done in the presence of candidates and /or their agents, if they so wish, who must all sign the authenticity of such verification and counting; SADC offers to send its Election Observer Mission who would be present throughout such verification and counting. SADC's words and intention appear honourable, except that they ignore the obvious, which is, there is a crisis in Zimbabwe, which has almost definitely resulted in ballot boxes being tampered with. These boxes have been in State and ZANU-PF custody for well over three weeks. By the time we all get round (if we ever will) to carrying out the count as required by SADC, who is to say what is being counted is the original uncontaminated vote. Only the most naive would believe that the ballot boxes have not been tampered with. No matter how properly-worded the SADC communique may have been, failure by SADC to recognise the urgency of the announcement of the Presidential Poll obviates / nullifies the painstaking well meaning efforts of the Heads of State, other than Mbeki, who attended the meeting and produced the communique.
It was also disturbing to hear SADC Heads of State recognising Mugabe as the President despite his having deliberately set the electoral process at large by failing to announce the results of the Presidential election. If Mugabe won, why has he not announced the result? Surely a deadline for the release of the results was necessary. Beyond that deadline, the legitimacy of Mugabe's tenure would no longer be accepted. My view is based on a simple principle: You cannot reward someone for deliberately derailing a process. What if Mugabe does not ever announce the results? Will SADC recognise him for another five years? Surely not.
