UN leader wants election scrapped

[Bozita]

Source: The Guardian UK

UN leader wants election scrapped
Julian Borger, diplomatic editor
The Guardian, Tuesday June 24, 2008

The UN condemned Zimbabwe last night for intimidation and called for the presidential vote due on Friday to be scrapped.

A draft security council resolution placed the blame for the withdrawal of the opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, on the Mugabe government, accusing it of "a campaign of violence" that had "denied its political opponents the right to campaign freely".

The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, spoke out against the government's actions in strong terms. He said Tsvangirai had been right to withdraw, and free elections would not now be possible. "There has been too much violence, too much intimidation," Ban said.

He added that if Friday's vote went ahead, it "would only deepen divisions within the country and produce a result that cannot be credible". Ban's intervention and the security council draft statement marked a sharp increase in pressure on Mugabe's government, and opened the door for the first time to direct UN involvement in the crisis.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/24/zimbabwe.unitednations

[MasonJar]

1. If the UN does not get into a travesty like this then when will it. It should

have stopped the US in Iraq, but the US is so powerful and so bellicose. However, surely the world can get rid of Mugabe.

[Posteritatis]

2. It won't act until the US - er, I mean, the Security Council - allows it to (nt)