Zimbabwe’s main opposition party on Monday flayed President Robert Mugabe’s decision to leave the Commonwealth, calling it illegal and urging the world to help bring back democracy to the impoverished nation.
”The decision to withdraw from the Commonwealth was taken without cabinet approval in terms of the constitution of Zimbabwe and is therefore unlawful,” the secretary general of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Welshman Ncube, said in a statement.
Mugabe announced his country’s withdrawal late on Sunday after the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Nigeria chose to prolong Zimbabwe’s suspension indefinitely and set up a committee to review its progress toward political reform.
Zimbabwe, which like most members of the Commonwealth is a former British colony, was suspended in March last year after Mugabe was reelected in a vote observers said was marred by violence and fraud.
Ncube’s statement said all that ”the international community and the people of Zimbabwe require Mugabe to do is to restore … the right to elect a government of their choice free from intimidation, violence and electoral fraud.
”Mugabe still wants to play politics at the expense of the people,” it added.
Zimbabwe has been mired in economic crisis, against a background of political repression and unrest triggered by a controversial programme to seize white-owned farms and distribute the land to blacks.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said on Monday he regrets Zimbabwe’s decision to withdraw, but looked forward to a time after Mugabe leaves office for the country to rejoin the club of former British colonies.
”I think it’s entirely in character sadly with President Mugabe. I think it’s a decision which he and particularly the Zimbabwean people will come to regret,” he said, in the first official British reaction to Mugabe’s announcement on Sunday.
”Zimbabwe, all of its people, have strong links with the Commonwealth but President Mugabe will not be there forever, and there are other countries that have been out of the Commonwealth, including Nigeria for a period and who’ve come back.
”I look forward to a time when Zimbabwe has a democratic government and is back in the Commonwealth,” he told reporters at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels.
Zimbabwe’s veteran leader said on Sunday he was making good on a threat to quit the 54-nation body, describing a decision by Commonwealth leaders to extend their suspension of the renegade southern African state as ”unacceptable”.
Mugabe announced his decision to the presidents of Nigeria, South Africa and Jamaica who had telephoned him to inform him of the decision, according to the information ministry in Harare.
Zimbabwe was suspended from the Commonwealth in March last year after a presidential election which saw the 79-year-old Mugabe voted back into office amid widespread vote-rigging, violence and political repression.
Straw added that he would discuss the Zimbabwe situation with his EU counterparts.
”I shall be briefing my European colleagues on the decisions made in Abuja where it was decided by consensus that Zimbabwe could not be readmitted to the council of the Commonwealth until it has met clear human rights benchmarks,” he said.
The regular two-day EU ministerial meeting is likely to be dominated by last-ditch talks on a first-ever constitution for the expanding Union, ahead of a make-or-break EU summit in Brussels starting on Friday. – Sapa-AFP
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