At a meeting of the COSATU and ZCTU on Tuesday – two leading trade unions in southern Africa – a statement was issued in regarding the elections held in Zimbabwe last week. The Congress of South African Trade Unions and the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions held the meeting to receive a report from the ZCTU on the current political crisis in Zimbabwe.
“[I]t is very clear that the arrest of ZEC officials is an attempt to force some ZEC officials to change tune. The suspicion is that they will be tortured into “confessing” that they, and other agents, under-counted President Mugabe’s votes as claimed by the ZANU (PF) Politburo, which has issued a statement that some of its party agents were bribed by the MDC,” according to the joint release by COAFTU and ZCTU.
The ZCTU and many other civil society formations are coming under intense pressure from their constituencies to initiate protest action in the face of the refusal of ZEC to announce the Presidential elections results.
The leadership is aware that such protest may be what President Mugabe is praying for, in that it would give him the excuse to declare a state of emergency and rule by decree. With the history of violence including, the massacre of 20 000 people in Matebeland between 1983 and 1987, this fear is not far fetched.
For that reason the ZCTU is urging all its members to remain calm, as the situation is a cliff-hanger and the popular mood is explosive.
Click here to view the full statement.
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