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Mnangagwa Labels Election Observers, “Racists” 4 Months Ahead Of Polls
3 April 2023
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Zimbabwe will not be dictated to on who to invite to observe its elections and, in future, only those countries that invite Harare to observe their own elections will be invited in return, President Mnangagwa has said.

Mnangagwa stated yesterday in his weekly piece in The Sunday Mail that nations go to their elections as sovereign states and, in fact, as State Parties to the United Nations, whose Charter ensures that all countries are equal, regardless of size and age.

According to him, State Parties interact with one another on an equal footing, with regard, and under the strict precept of reciprocity.

Between July 26 and August 26, Zimbabwe will conduct harmonised elections. President Mnangagwa is anticipated to announce the election date soon.
“Going forward, and as a country and nation which is proudly African and sovereign, we shall be insisting on the principle of reciprocity when it comes to the practice of international election observation.

“The time will soon come when we will not accept that condescending and even racist view of a pecking order when it comes to measuring electoral democracy unfolding in our sovereign countries, and which, in any event, is meant for our people,” President Mnangagwa said.

He downplayed the issue of a pecking order with on one side “white super dogs” who must observe elections of lesser beings, and on the other black underdogs whose polls must be observed, passed or failed.

“Nothing about our chequered colonial history justifies that false hierarchy; nothing in present international rules legitimises that presumptuous supremacy.

“The theory and practice of election observation must be on the basis of equality and reciprocity among nations. Anything less and one-sided diminishes and creates a deep sense of bruise and injury to our sovereignty,” the President said.

“Much worse, we reject as utterly racist and condescending this practice of making our proud and sovereign nation an equal if not a junior of some Western non-governmental centre, institute or foundation. We are no one’s subaltern, least of all of some non-governmental organisation. Never again will we subject ourselves to such false, humiliating equivalences.”