By Staff Writer
OPPOSITION leader Nelson Chamisa Monday made the much awaited announcement, briefing citizens on the state of affairs around the August 2023 disputed polls where he took a dig at the complacency by the regional bloc in resolving the country’s dispute.
The official results, announced by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, declared Mnangagwa as the winner with 52.6% of the vote, while Chamisa secured 44%.
Efforts by Chamisa to engage Mnangagwa directly regarding the electoral dispute have been unsuccessful, leading him to seek intervention from regional bodies like SADC.
But Chamisa said since 26th of September 2023, he wrote to the regional body, SADC, the guarantor of the values and principles of the aspirations of the “common agenda” and “common will” of the people of Southern Africa.
He said on October 26 2023 SADC responded to the request and advised that they were giving the matter due consideration.
“Meanwhile, we have noted the various meetings the leadership of SADC has held, including the latest Extraordinary Summit of the Organ Page 2 of 3 Troika on the 23rd of March 2024 in Lusaka, Zambia.
“Therefore, we have advisedly been patiently waiting on our request. On the 29th of April, however, since considerable time has passed, yet we had sought to resolve this issue much earlier, we delivered our follow-up to SADC for which we await a response to determine a clear path forward to resolve the governance crisis and leadership dispute,” said Chamisa.
The opposition leader said the request to SADC was and “remains very simple, that, as the regional body which Zimbabwe has signed up for membership and vested some authority in the supranational intergovernmental organization, we require their facilitation to peacefully resolve the issues around the irregular and disputed elections.”
He said the problem of the manipulated elections that produced a government without a mandate from the citizens has since culminated into high levels of intolerance, violations, repression and illegal recalls of citizen representatives.
