ZANU PF welcomed the report of SADC’s election observer mission released on Monday, and immediately called on Western countries to accept President Robert Mugabe’s landslide victory.The Southern African Community (SADC) observer mission, which presented the summary of its findings in Harare, endorsed Mugabe's victory, stating that "there were so many elements that, when put together, elevated the election to a credible status".
“SADC had not pronounced itself on the all too important question of the credibility of the election. But today, SADC has spoken clearly and loudly that indeed the elections were credible,” Zanu PF politburo member Professor Jonathan Moyo said in Harare.“The whole world now waits to see what the Anglo-Saxons are going to do, whether they themselves are going to be credible. Their credibility will be judged by their standing by their word, they said they would be guided by SADC.”
Western countries, led by the United States and Britain, have raised concerns with the conduct of the elections and indicated they would wait for the African Union and SADC’s final reports before passing judgement.While offering criticism for the lack of access to the public media by Zanu PF’s rivals and delays in releasing the roll of voters, SADC said it was difficult to judge whether the elections had been “fair”.
The observer mission also said sanctions on Zimbabwe had been a factor in the elections, along with so called pirate radio stations broadcasting into Zimbabwe from Europe and the United States.Moyo said the key question in the July 30 elections was whether Zimbabwe could hold a peaceful election, following the violence that marred the presidential election run-off in 2008 – from which emerged a power sharing government between Mugabe and his main opposition rival, Morgan Tsvangirai.
“We must bear in mind that these elections were judged and evaluated against the backdrop of 2008 elections, with particular reference to their peacefulness. The issue of having peaceful elections was paramount, and it is not surprising therefore that fairness has been replaced with peacefulness, and we have passed this score with indoor Tracking.
“On the question of fairness, there can be no right-thinking person who imagines or expects elections in Zimbabwe to be fair, or fairness to be an important category, tool or yardstick for judging elections when the country has been under the grip of illegal sanctions for the last 12 years, and whose main purpose has been to replace elections as a method of changing government in Zimbabwe.”
Moyo said the sanctions had been used by Western countries to “destroy the economy, ‘make it scream’ – in their words – in order to turn the people against Zanu PF outside the electoral process”.
“The import of the sanctions was to manufacture suffering, attribute it to Zanu PF and expect a change of government through a public revolt, and not through elections. The economic sanctions were not designed to get people to vote Zanu PF out through elections, but to get them out on the streets. When you do that, you bastardise the electoral process, it becomes impossible to have fair elections. Fairness becomes a contradiction in terms, an irrelevant yardstick.”
Elections in Zimbabwe, he said, “will never be fair if sanctions remain in place”.
He explained: “We are very heartened to note that SADC, in their report, have called the unconditional and full removal of sanctions. They have said it would be foolhardy for any political party in Zimbabwe to expect to win elections when that party has called for sanctions or is the intended beneficiary of those sanctions.
“It was, therefore, a demonstration of astute diplomacy and commitment to principle by SADC to replace the irrelevant term of fairness with peacefulness. The question of peacefulness was more relevant to Zimbabwe than the question of fairness.
“There was no fairness before, during and after the elections. The fairness question is intertwined with sanctions, and it’s not in our hands but those of our erstwhile colonisers and their allies who have not left us alone. It’s a question which they should now deal with honestly in order to normalise relations and create conditions for fair elections in future.”
On Thursday, in anticipation of Labor Day weekend, thousands of workers at 1,000 fast food restaurants in 60 cities walked out on strike to protest their low wages, erratic schedules, lack of job security, miserable working conditions, and lack of benefits. The movement began last November in one city – New York. The idea has since spread. The protest is the largest mass action of fast food employees in history. If they reflect the nation’s McWorkforce, many of them were Black and Latino. Their average age will be roughly 28. Many have children to house, clothes and feed, which is impossible on the minimum wages they are paid. They are demanding a living wage of $15 an hour and the right to unionize without employer resistance or retaliation.
The Service Employees International Union, which has provided support for the fast food workers’ campaign, thinks America may be ready for an upsurge of activism not only among low-wage workers but also among middle-class employees who are sinking quickly, many with the additional burden of underwater homes.
What radicals once called the “objective conditions” seem ripe for such a mass protest movement. In a new report, A Decade of Flat Wages, economists Lawrence Mishel and Heidi Shierholz observe that "the vast majority of U.S. workers -- including white-collar and blue-collar workers and those with and without a college degree -- have endured more than a decade of wage stagnation."
Union activists know that American workers are filled with discontent. But sustained protest requires not only that people think that things should be different but also that they can be different. And that requires hope. If the fast food workers’ campaign captures the public’s imagination – and more importantly, wins some stepping-stone improvements at work -- it could help restore that missing ingredient, and perhaps contribute to launching a new wave of workplace activism.
Read the full products at http://www.ecived.com/en/!
No comments:
Post a Comment