FORMER United States diplomats have described Monday polls
as a mere political charade and urged the world’s biggest economy to be wary of
deeply engaging President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
In an article published by the US Council on Foreign
Relations titled Zimbabwe’s Upcoming Election Is a Political Charade: Why the
US Should Be Wary of Engaging Mnangagwa, Michelle Gavin and Todd Moss said
after visiting the country, they were left convinced that Mnangagwa was “a big
pretender”.
“We hoped to find signs of genuine progress that would
justify a significant change in US policy and new commitments to working with
Zimbabwe’s government,” Gavin and Moss wrote on Wednesday.
“Unfortunately, we came away convinced that what we
witnessed was more political theatre than good faith and that the United States
should be deeply wary of engagement with Mnangagwa.”
Gavin served as senior Africa director at the National
Security Council and as the US ambassador to Botswana in the Barack Obama
administration while Moss served as deputy assistant secretary of State in the
George Bush’s administration.
The two visited Zimbabwe as part of an independent
delegation of former senior US diplomats with long experience in the country in
order to see for themselves what had changed since former President Robert
Mugabe’s departure.
Mnangagwa, a long time Mugabe enforcer, took over from his
former boss on the back of a military-aided power transition last November and
has been promising to usher in free, fair and credible elections to make a
departure from the country’s past of gross human rights violations and disputed
polls.
The 76-year-old leader had also promised to end Zimbabwe’s
international isolation and has since launched an international public
relations campaign to end Zimbabwe’s status as an international pariah and
attract foreign direct investment. Newsday
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