Washington, DC — New Cherokee jeeps donated by Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Al-Gaddafi for ZANU-PF to use in the presidential election set for next year, may have helped the party win the crucial, bitterly contested election for a parliamentary seat in the north-eastern rural constituency of Bindura last weekend.
According to the Zimbabwe Independent newspaper, the cars have already been distributed to key Zanu-PF campaigners, including self-styled war veterans leader, Joseph Chinotimba.
Al-Gaddafi has reportedly pledged some US$900,000 to the party to aid in Mugabe's presidential campaign next year. "He wants our party to win," a senior ZANU-PF official was quoted as saying by the Zimbabwe Independent.
Ironically, note observers and analysts, such financial aid is now illegal thanks to an amendment to the Political Parties (Finance) Act made earlier this year aimed at blocking the flow of external funds to the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). It says:"No political party or candidate shall accept any foreign donation, whether directly from the donor or indirectly through a third person."
But ZANU-PF officials claim not to know that Al-Gaddafi has pledged any money to their party. "I am not involved in it," the party's deputy secretary for finance was quoted as saying. "I really don't know about that money."
Libya made a radical turn away from the Middle East and toward Africa in 1998. In the Fall of that year, Al-Gaddafi ordered that the name of Libya's state radio, which for three decades had been known as the "Voice of the Great Arab Homeland," should be changed to "Voice of Africa".
A year later, he proposed the "African Union" at the first OAU Summit he had attended in fifteen years. The Union has now been ratified by enough African states to officially come into existence - replacing the OAU - in about a year.
Last year Libya extended to Zimbabwe, a US$100m line of credit for oil imports. However says Professor Mansour el-Kikhia of the University of Texas, a Libyan himself, much of Libya's money gifts to African leaders and nations "does not go through official channels".
Ghana has been promised US$250m by Al-Gaddafi for investment in small-scale agri-businesses in the country. Nor is cash the only form of significant gift giving. Libya has also agreed to supply Ghana with 30,000 barrels of crude oil per day, beginning this month.
Libya has also given Mig 23 aircraft to both Zambia and Zimbabwe. " Libya's bounty runs from direct military involvement against government opponents in the Central African Republic, to buying bananas from South Africa," according to Menas Associates which publishes a monthly "Focus on Libya" newsletter.
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
Libya reportedly paid ten years worth of back dues owed the OAU for ten African nations on condition that they give support to the African Union idea Al-Gaddafi proposed. Libya also paid almost all of the US$17m cost of this year's OAU heads-of-State meeting in Lusaka, Zambia. It was after this meeting that Al-Gaddafi is said to have made his pledge of aid to ZANU-PF.
Most African nations oppose the sanctions that have been placed against Libya by the United States, and Libya has been generally applauded for pushing the idea of African unity. However, in parts of West Africa, in particular, resentment runs deep, aggravated by assaults and rioting directed against citizens of sub-Saharan Africa living in Libya.
Not everyone in Africa is entirely happy with Libya's cash largesse. Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo is said to have warned Al-Gaddafi not to interfere in the affairs of other African nations. A Menas Associates report claims that Obasanjo had information of Libyan financial involvement in at least twelve "recent insurrections" in African nations.
