African Union Body Meeting in Arusha Skips Zimbabwe Debate

The just-ended African Union Executive Council meeting which took place in the northern Tanzanian town of Arusha failed to discuss the Zimbabwe election crisis, APA learned on Thursday. The chairman of the 11th extraordinary session of the AU body, Bernard Membe, told reporters in Arusha that a discussion on Zimbabwe had to be shelved since the report presented to them lacked opposition comments.

“We didn’t deliberate on the issue of Zimbabwe because the report of the Chairperson of AU Commission, Jean Ping, missed comments from the opposition,” Membe said.

Ping was in South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe to gather information on the situation in Zimbabwe in the aftermath of the 29th March elections.

In his brief report Wednesday, Ping said as far as the Zimbabwe electoral law was concerned, a re-run of the 29 March presidential poll was unavoidable.

“In this respect, the AU urges the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to ensure that the re-run is undertaken as provided for in the electoral law,” Ping told the extraordinary AU Executive Council in Arusha on Wednesday.

In the run-up to the second round of the presidential poll, the AU re-emphasized the need for Zimbabwe to implement conditions set out in the declaration on the Principles Governing Democratic Elections in Africa, he said.

Ping further said that the agreement reached and the conditions prevailing prior to the 29 March polls should be upheld during the rerun of the presidential poll, whose date has not been set by the country’s electoral commission.

He appealed to the Zimbabwean political actors to conduct their activities in a free, transparent, tolerant and non-violent manner so as to enable eligible Zimbabweans to exercise their democratic rights.

The AU Executive Council meeting was convened to chart out strategies on how to strengthen the union and its organs, a measure aimed at ensuring that the continent was politically and economically integrated.

Source African Press Agency

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