Tsvangirai faults Sadc observer team
Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has declared a preliminary report of the Sadc observer team to Zimbabwe elections as wrong, saying there are all reasons for one to reject results of the July 31 elections.
He emphasised that he and his MDC will not heed calls to accept the outcome, calling the elections illegitimate and calling for Zimbabwe to hold fresh elections.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) on Saturday declared incumbent Robert Mugabe winner of the presidential election with 61 percent against rival Tsvangirai’s 34 percent.
The 61-member Southern Africa Development Community (Sadc) team led by Tanzania Foreign Affairs Minister Bernard Membe on Friday called on all Zimbabweans to accept results even when the mission itself failed to conclude whether the process was fair and credible.
At a press conference held in the aftermath of a day-long MDC national executive meeting, Tsvangirai also announced that the party will not participate in any government institutions, including parliament.
He said: “We will not participate in any institutions formed by an illegitimate process because that will be legitimising the outcome.”
According to Tsvangirai, MDC won the elections “and we totally reject the results for several reasons.”
Among the reasons, MDC repeated the lack of access to the voters roll and lack of access to public media maintaining that the process was fraudulent.
All the reasons Tsvangirai announced for their decision to reject the results of the harmonised elections are a repeat of MDC arguments prior to the election date.
Mugabe has since called on MDC to seek redress from the courts if they felt short-changed.
Although Tsvangirai indicated a possibility of going to the electoral and constitutional courts to nullify the elections and call for fresh polls, he doubted the impartiality of a judicial system he called “not independent”.
Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party got more than two thirds majority required to make and amend laws in parliament.
