Mugabe seeks AU support for 2012 poll

This article was written by Our reporter on 30 January, at 02 : 32 AM

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PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe and the Zanu-PF party say the inclusive Government is dysfunctional and accuse the Movement for Democratic Change factions of scuttling constitutional reforms, demanding elections be held in 2012.

A report by Voice of America claims that President Mugabe will make a pitch to fellow African Union leaders gathered for next week’s summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to support his push for elections in 2012.

African leaders met Sunday and will meet today (Monday) to discuss various continental issues.

This is the first time African Union leaders have met since the death of the bloc’s founder Colonel Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, with intense lobbying for its top jobs overshadowing the start of the talks.

In a statement, Zanu-PF spokesman Rugare Gumbo urged the African Union to “demand the holding of elections in Zimbabwe this year as well as the unconditional removal of economic sanctions by Western countries.”

Gumbo accused the two MDC formations in government of delaying completion of the new constitution to avoid new elections. He told VOA that elections cannot be put off beyond 2012. He said Zanu-PF is confident AU leaders will endorse this stance.

But Douglas Mwonzora, spokesman for Tsvangirai’s MDC faction, said Gumbo is mistaken in claiming the MDC is sabotaging elections.

Meanwhile, heads of state and government from across the African continent on Saturday witnessed the inauguration of the new headquarters of the African Union, a gleaming conference and office complex that towers over central Addis Ababa.

The building consists of a circular conference hall, alongside which is a 27 storey tower for the organisation’s offices. The tower is 100 metres high, which makes it the tallest building in Addis Ababa.

The building cost 200 million US dollars, and is a donation from the Chinese government.

The gift was announced by Chinese President Hu Jintao at the Beijing Summit on China-Africa cooperation in 2006. China describes it as the largest single Chinese aid project to Africa since the construction of the Tan-Zam Railway, built between 1970 and 1975 in order to give landlocked Zambia a route to the Tanzanian port of Dar es Salaam, thus freeing it from dependence on trade routes that went through countries then ruled by white minority regimes (Ian Smith’s Rhodesia, apartheid South Africa, and Mozambique, then still under Portuguese minority rule).