Mbeki implicated in rigging of 2002 poll
The Zimbabwean
Monday, 12 May 2008 08:13
President Thabo Mbeki’s role as a mediator in the Zimbabwean crisis
took another knock yesterday after disclosures that he ignored the
advice of two judges he commissioned to observe that country’s 2002
general elections, writes Michael Bleby and Karima Brown in Business
Day, Johannesburg.
Mbeki commissioned judges Sisi Khampepe and Dikgang Moseneke to
observe the controversial Zimbabwean election in 2002 — which the
opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) still claims was rigged.
On their return the judges wrote a scathing re****t on the conduct of
the election and submitted it to Mbeki.
This was despite the ruling African National Congress (ANC), the
government and the Southern African Development Community giving a
thumbs up, saying the election result “represented the will of the
Zimbabwean people”.
Their re****t detailed the constitutional changes made by President
Robert Mugabe before the presidential election to give him sweeping
powers to amend electoral laws.
It also said the failure of that country’s legal system to permit a
valid challenge to the results undermined these efforts.
The shortcomings in the 2002 election that returned Mugabe to power
included a failure to properly constitute the Electoral Supervisory
Commission; a change in the Electoral Act to give Mugabe, rather than
parliament, the authority to alter electoral law; and the change of
wording in the Electoral Act to stymie challenges to election findings.
MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai attempted to nullify the changes that
Mugabe had made to s ection 158 of the Electoral Act but the challenge
was thrown out by Zimbabwe’s Supreme Court a month after the election.
Matthew Walton, a lawyer acting for the MDC in SA, approached the
local courts demanding the re****t’s release.
But the MDC later said it had stopped the court action, out of respect
for the South African government’s right to keep certain matters private.
Neither Moseneke, now SA’s deputy chief justice, nor Khampepe could be
reached for comment.
Walton said he had written to Mbeki to request the re****t, but the
president’s legal adviser had replied that it was never intended for
publication and could not be released as it dealt with relations between
heads of state — exempting it from SA’s Promotion of Access to Information
Act.
Adv Jeremy Gauntlett, who represented the MDC in its challenge of the
2002 presidential election, said of the re****t: “There is a second
secret Khampepe re****t. It concerns a matter of no less im****tance: has
Mugabe in fact ruled Zimbabwe for the past six years in a do***ented
breach of the law and his electorate’s will?”
In an article written exclusively for Business Day and published
elsewhere in the paper, Gauntlett said the tricks used in the 2002
re****t re likely to be used again in the presidential runoff
necessitated by the lack of a clear winner in the March 29 elections.
The details of the re****t submitted to Mbeki six years ago make it
almost impossible he is unaware of the deceptions and illegalities
perpetrated by Mugabe to cling to power.
His unwillingness to blow the whistle on Mugabe — which dates back
beyond the 2002 poll — is the reason Tsvangirai last month asked Mbeki to
step down as the lead negotiator for the Southern African Development
Community’s mediation efforts on Zimbabwe.
But while Tsvangirai has a difficult relation****p with Mbeki, behind
the scenes meetings between the MDC and Mbeki are continuing.
Business Day understands that Mbeki, who visited Mugabe last week to
resuscitate his mediation efforts, has been engaging the MDC in behind the
scenes talks intended to break the political impasse in Zimbabwe.
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