Zimbabwe too poor to hold proper elections, says official

Calcutta News.Net
Saturday 28th August, 2010

Bankrupt Zimbabwe may not have enough money to hold elections, according to the head of the country’s electoral commission who spoke to state-run media Friday.

“Ultimately, the economy of the country will determine when and whether we hold elections," Simpson Mutambanengwe, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) chairman, told the state-run Chronicle newspaper.

He added that the commission was chronically short of funds and unable to investigate and clean up the current voters’ roll, which he described as being in “disarray” due to ghost voters, names of people that do not exist who are placed on the roll by political parties trying to influence the election results.

Zimbabwe’s current coalition government, with opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai as Prime Minister and Robert Mugabe as President, is expected to go to the polls once more next year in the hopes of determining an outright winner.

A new constitution is also being drafted, but, like the elections, its writing has been marred by allegations of intimidation.

In next year’s elections, President Mugabe may well be campaigning for a title he will no longer hold. The controversial president was reportedly told this week by physicians that his cancer is advancing faster than they can control.

Mugabe is now said to be looking for successors.

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