Eyewitness account of Zimbabwean elections
Published Apr 6, 2005 4:09 PM
Following are excerpts from remarks by Omowale Clay from the
Brooklyn-based December 12 Move ment organization on the April 1 broadcast of
the Pacifica-based radio show “Democracy Now!” hosted by Amy
Goodman. This segment focused on the recent elections in Zimbabwe, in which
President Robert Mugabe won a significant re-election victory. Clay traveled
throughout Zimbabwe before and during the elections. Go to www.democracynow.org
to read entire transcript.
I am speaking to the
Pacifica audience from Harare, Zimbabwe. I have been here with a December 12
International Secre tariat foreign-observer team, which was invited by the
government of Zimbabwe to participate in observation of this historic election.
I have been here on the ground for two weeks.
We have traveled through
three major provinces and on election day we viewed over 15 constituencies in
terms of different polling stations. Yesterday the people of Zimbabwe
resoundingly said they will never be a colony again. Unofficial results have
confirmed that Zanu-PF has won a major victory, and by all counts will capture
over two-thirds of the electoral vote, which will give them the ability to
restructure their constitution.
Democracy in Zimbabwe is not anything new.
For the past 25 years, democracy was brought to Zimbabwe through national
liberation, armed struggle, and it was never given to the Zimbawean people. But
since 1980, when the first elections took place, there have been six major
parliamentary elections and three presidential elections that have taken place.
So no one can teach Zimbabwe democracy.
Zimbabwe is teaching it to the
African and pan-African world, as well as to the neocolonizers who are trying to
re-colonize Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe has over 5,700,000 registered voters. For this
election there were polling stations numbering 8,256. There were 50,000
translucent voting boxes so that everyone could see the ballots that were in the
boxes.
There were over 7,000 international observers on the ground here
and over 203 international press crews. SADC, the Southern African Development
Community, has election observers on the ground and it is important to note that
Zimbabwe is the first country and the only country to hold its elections along
the guidelines and principles of the SADC election law.
The question of
the elections in Zim babwe is really more tied to the question of whether Bush
and Blair, Britain and the United States, are able to capitalize on their plan
to re-colonize Africans. We all know that the land question in Zimbabwe is why
Zimbabwe is in the news.
There have been elections and corruption going on
all around the Third World. Why is all the attention on Zimbabwe? Why is Tony
Blair interested in the elections in Zimbabwe? Since the A1 and A2 land reform
programs have been instituted, 14,955,967 acres of land have been returned to
over 138,235 households in Zimbabwe, and this is historic. Never in the history
of the African world has there been a mass transfer of land, wealth, the real
wealth of the people been transferred back to the households. So this is what
the real issue is in Zimbabwe.
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