The Zimbabwean ambassador to South Africa was scathing about a protest by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) outside his embassy in Pretoria on Wednesday, saying he pities the protesters.
”I hesitate to give an iota of dignity to these misguided malcontents,” Simon Khaya Moyo said after a group of about 100 Cosatu members picketed outside the embassy.
They were protesting against human rights abuses in the neighbouring country, and asking that a fact-finding mission be sent to investigate the running of elections on March 31.
Moyo denied that worker rights are being undermined in Zimbabwe.
”What basic rights of workers are being undermined?” he asked.
He called the protest a ”damp squib”, and said Cosatu is acting like an un-elected government, and does not want to answer to anybody.
”They seem to have forgotten that their mandate is to look after the interests of the workers of South Africa.”
At the protest, Cosatu deputy president Joe Nkosi said the Zimbabwean parliamentary election should be postponed, as it will not be free and fair ”under the current legislation”.
Asked to give the Zimbabwean government a mark out of 10 for its progress towards achieving democratic elections, Nkosi gave it a zero.
”They do not even qualify for a mark. There is duplication of names on the voters’ roll. The political climate is not right for free and fair elections,” Nkosi said.
He said Cosatu wants the Zimbabwean people to be liberated from oppression just as South Africans have been.
”The playing field before the elections still favours the [ruling] Zanu-PF, as workers and political parties are unable to assemble in groups of more than four,” Nkosi said.
Cosatu plans to continue picketing the embassy in the run-up to the March 31 election, spokesperson Patrick Craven said earlier in the day.
The protests will culminate in a vigil at Beit Bridge on the South African-Zimbabwe border on the night before Zimbabweans go to the polls. — Sapa