- The regional body's response reveals matter is being given due consideration
OPPOSITION leader Nelson Chamisa is still maintaining pressure on SADC, nine months after last year's disorderly general elections, revealing in a statement Monday that the regional body had said it was giving the matter "due consideration".
Chamisa managed close to two million votes in a heavily contested Presidential race marred by irregularities that included delayed delivery of voting material to perceived opposition strongholds and voter intimidation in scattered outposts.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission's (ZEC) handling of the poll was criticised by Election Observer Missions (EOM) from Europe, America, the African Union and SADC leading Chamisa to write in protest to the regional body.
Speaking to journalists on Monday, Chamisa said despite having received a response on the matter late last year, he had written a follow-up letter with the hope SADC could facilitate an end to Zimbabwe's political crisis.
This was Chamisa's first public address since resigning from the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) party over claims it had been infiltrated.
"Our 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 organisation, we require their facilitation to peacefully resolve the issues around the irregular and disputed elections," said Chamisa.
"We want this issue resolved as soon as possible. We cannot be the world's laughing stock, a country which never has credible elections. Remember the 2018 elections were disputed and so were the 2023 polls.
"There is no other election in the history of elections in this country that has invited resounding and universal condemnation as the August 2023 elections.
"This matter must be resolved so that the country can have proper elections that produce a proper government from the citizens."
Chamisa's first letter to SADC was on the 26th of September, a month after ZEC declared Mnangagwa the winner of the elections.
SADC responded on the 23rd of October before his follow-up this year, on April 29 which according to Chamisa had been necessitated by silence at its Troika meetings, particularly the one held in Zambia in March.
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"We wrote to our 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.
SADC became the centre of attention after delivering, for the first time, a damning report on Zimbabwe's elections, falling short of declaring it a sham.
State actors hounded the head of its delegation Dr. Nevers Mumba whom they accused of colluding with the President of Zambia, Hakainde Hichilema to condemn them.
Added Chamisa: "The current challenges of failing to resolve the huge national debt, high inflation, currency distortions, drought, starvation, poverty, poor income, the hostile political environment, an air of sadness and brain drain are all symptoms of a government without a proper mandate."
Zimbabwe is expected to host the 44th SADC Heads of State and Government Summit this August.
