Zim elections 'in 12 months'

Elections in Zimbabwe would probably be held in the next 12 months, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai told journalists at the World Economic Forum on Africa in Cape Town on Thursday, but they were unlikely to take place this year.

This was subject to the “fulfilment of certain benchmarks” including the finalisation of a new constitution, a referendum and then an agreed date for election, he said.

It was of critical importance to ensure that the right conditions existed so that when the elections were held, the results would be “no longer contestable”, said Tsvangirai, whose Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) shares Zimbabwe’s government of national unity with President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF.

“Having gone through the experience of violence,” Tsvangirai said, “the next election must produce a legitimate government so that we don’t have the losers trying to negotiate their way back into power through some form of a coalition like a government of national unity.”

The outcome of the election must be legitimate, credible and must be conducted to the satisfaction of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the African Union and the international community, he said.

Mugabe had called for elections this year to end the power-sharing rule formed in 2008, after a disputed presidential vote marred by violence.

But he has appeared to back away from his insistence on the polls, after SADC leaders insisted in March that Zimbabwe draft a new constitution before going to elections.

On April 27, Tendai Biti, the finance minister from Tsvangirai’s party, told local media that the country did not have money to hold the proposed elections in 2011.—Additional reporting by AFP