Zimbabwe needs help in run-off poll: youth groups

Zimbabwe election officials counting ballots

Zimbabwe needs urgent and drastic assistance from the African Union (AU) and Southern African Development Community (SADC) leaders in order to have fair run-off elections, South African and Zimbabwean youth organisations said today.

“The people of Zimbabwe need change and they need it urgently," says Zimbabwe Youth Network co-ordinator Munjodzi Mutandiri.

The youth groups, including the Young Communist League (YCL), The South African Congress of Student Unions (Sasco) and the Zimbabwe National Student Union (Zinasu) called for the run-off elections to be held on May 23 with results to be released within 48 hours of polling.

Zinasu president Clever Bere said a peacekeeping force from the AU should be deployed as well as a rigorous observer team to ensure the runoff would be free and fair.

Bere said the events unfolding in Zimbabwe could be equated to a war situation. He said Zimbabweans did not want a situation like the recent election violence in Kenya to erupt.

Calls for international community to intervene
Meanwhile, ZYN's Mutandiri said the international community needed to intervene while there was still time. “We note with sadness the culture that has gripped our continent, the culture of waiting for a flood of dead bodies before the international community responds,” he said.

Mutandiri said Thabo Mbeki as the SADC mediator should and can do better than what he had been doing. "His stance is more like an insult."

In an interview last Saturday with Al Jazeera in Doha Qatar, Mbeki said Zimbabwean people could solve their own problems and the rest of the world should just assist.

Mutandiri said if SADC and the AU did what they should do, democracy in Zimbabwe would be possible.

The youth organisations also condemned the recent xenophobic attacks on Zimbabweans and immigrants from other parts of Africa. “We are pleading with South Africans; these are our black brothers and sisters; they must be allowed in the country because of the political crisis. – Sapa