Khama told national television this week that the elections were neither free nor fair and said Botswana would no longer participate in any SADC election observer missions, because the leadership bloc appears to have let Zimbabwe “off the hook”.
SADC has faced serious criticism for endorsing Zimbabwe’s 2013 polls in the face of widespread reports of irregularities, witnessed by observer missions from across the region.
Botswana rejected claims that the poll was credible, and in early August 2013 called for an audit of the results. But a final decision was later voiced by SADC, with its main observer mission saying the polls were generally free and peaceful.
“I want to correct the word fairness… the SADC observer statement said the elections were free and peaceful, they never used the word fair… that’s why we asked for an audit of the Zimbabwe election,” Khama said on BTV.
“SADC has set itself guidelines for the conduct of free and fair elections and, therefore, it’s incumbent on all of us in SADC to conform to those set of guidelines and if there is a breach of those guidelines then we have to say, ‘Fine, we have breached these guidelines; what now happens? What do we do about it?’ Do we say Zimbabwe is an exception to the SADC guidelines?”
Khama has long been considered to be cut of a different cloth to that of his fellow Southern African leaders, and has previously been critical of the situation in Zimbabwe when his counterparts were prepared to ignore it. – SW Radio Africa
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