Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Zimbabwe Government Cancels Poll Funding Request

Govt cancels poll funding request

Wednesday, 17 April 2013 00:00
Felex Share Herald Reporter

ZIMBABWE has cancelled its request for election funding from the United Nations after the world body’s election assessment team rejected terms of reference that were laid down by the Government. The team wanted to visit the country last Wednesday to discuss the election budget, but Government blocked it while in South Africa after it overstepped its mandate, demanding to meet entities and civil society organisations with nothing to do with elections.

The NGOs the team sought to meet include the Zimbabwe Election Support Network, Nango, Women’s Coalition, academia representatives and an umbrella association of journalists, some of whom have been hostile to the Government.

Justice and Legal Affairs Minister Patrick Chinamasa yesterday confirmed the development after separately meeting diplomats from the Non-Aligned Movement and Western countries in Harare.

Foreign Affairs Minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi attended the briefings. This comes as the UN yesterday said it was withdrawing the mission, citing differences with the Government.

UN Resident and Humanitarian Co-ordinator Mr Alain Noudehou said it had become apparent that there were different expectations on the modalities of the Needs Assessment Mission.

Minister Chinamasa said Zimbabwe would mobilise funds locally for the elections that are expected to be held by June 29.He said principals in the inclusive Government had agreed to cancel the request.

“After the impasse on the terms of agreement with the UN team, through the team leader (Mr Tadjoudine Ali-Diabacte) and his deputy, a Netherlands national, on Sunday, we referred the issue to the principals and the instruction that we have is that the conditionalities by the team are unacceptable,” said Minister Chinamasa.

“In any event, the UN avenue for sourcing resources for election is now closed. It is no longer an open book, but a closed chapter.

“The ball is back in our court and what we have to do is to look for local resources to conduct our elections and that we have already started doing.”

Zimbabwe needs about US$132 million to hold the elections. Minister Mumbengegwi said within the UN regulations, no team could be sent into a country of a member-state without agreed and signed terms of reference.

“Any team can only come in on mutually agreed terms of reference,” he said.

“In this case, we have failed to realise mutually agreed terms and we have rejected what they want to impose on us. We are a member state and unacceptable terms cannot be forced onto us. They wanted to be involved in our domestic political affairs, but we know our needs and requirements.”

Minister Mumbengegwi said Zimbabwe, being a sovereign state, had carried out its own needs assessment exercise.

“Why should we allow them to come and do what we have done? They should have just come to look and decide whether or not they were prepared to support our election budget and to what extent. This they refused to do and the chapter is closed.”

Minister Chinamasa said it was clear the UN assessment team wanted to “hand-hold” the MDC formations.

“It was clear that the team wanted a broader mandate and from today’s meeting we saw that they wanted to hand-hold the MDC formations in their relationship with Zanu-PF, and that we reject,” he said.

“They kept on talking about security sector and media reforms, all sorts of euphemisms, not even mentioning sanctions that are poisoning our electoral environment. “We remain alert to any attempts to manipulate, infiltrate and interfere with our internal processes and we are happy we have parted ways with them.”

Minister Chinamasa said the relationship between Zimbabwe and the UN Department of Political Affairs had not been smooth in the past years. “It started with the UN envoy Anna Tibaijuka’s report which was a shame to the department as the report was written in New York before she even came into the country,” he said.

“They went on to threaten us with a Chapter 7 resolution on the basis that Zimbabwe was a threat to international peace and security but whose security, as small as we are, did we threaten? We are also under sanctions and those countries that imposed sanctions on us are dominant players in the UN Security Council.”

According to the terms of reference given to the UN team, it was supposed to discuss with the Registrar General’s Office, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission and the Sadc group of ambassadors.

The team was also expected to meet the ministers of Justice, Finance, Regional Integration and International Co-operation, Parliamentary and Constitutional Affairs, Home Affairs; the chief secretary to the President and Cabinet; Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara.

Said Minister Chinamasa: “Those are the people they were supposed to meet and they were shocked when we told them together with Finance Minister Tendai Biti we had a common position on the terms.

“Whatever Minister Biti says, which is outside the common position, is his own prerogative. I know he has been saying all sorts of rubbish. As you know, this is a free country, free press that publishes all sort of rubbish and who are we to stop that, but the good thing is that I have given the factual position.”

Minister Chinamasa said Government would also mobilise funds to conduct voter registration ahead of the harmonised elections.

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