The inauguration of President Thabo Mbeki on Tuesday will be sullied by the attendance of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, the official opposition Democratic Alliance said on Monday. Mugabe was reported to have arrived in South Africa on Sunday.
DA federal chairperson Joe Seremane said in a statement that South Africa’s successful election “is a tribute to the growing maturity of our democracy”.
“It has shown that diversity is not only tolerated; it has become a hallmark of our strength as a country. But for Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe to bask in the reflected glory of our achievements should be something that is an affront to all who treasure South Africa’s hard-won freedoms.”
Seremane noted that former president Nelson Mandela pledged (during his inauguration in 1994) that “never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another and suffer the indignity of being the skunk of the world”.
“The sad irony is that this is precisely the scenario that has developed in Zimbabwe, a country which was once seen as a beacon of hope for the continent,” Seremane said.
“Under Mugabe’s leadership Zimbabwe has lurched from crisis to another. Today Zimbabwe finds itself in a political and economic morass from which it will struggle for years to extricate itself.
“The suffering of ordinary Zimbabweans should not be underestimated as unemployment; hyperinflation, food shortages and political violence continue to exact their toll.
“Zimbabwe’s record of holding free and fair elections could not be further removed from that of South Africa’s. Its presidential elections in 2000 were viewed by many of the foreign observer delegations and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change as being fatally flawed, with large-scale vote rigging, massive electoral fraud and political violence being perpetrated against opposition members and supporters.
“It is simply not appropriate for Mugabe to attend President Mbeki’s inauguration. The Zimbabwean leader’s rule has come to symbolise the very kind of injustice for which so many South Africans fought so long to overcome.” — I-Net Bridge