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Zimbabwe

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will now repeat a Statement made yesterday in the other place by my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary. The Statement is as follows: ““Mr Speaker, the whole world is watching events unfolding in Zimbabwe and with your permission I will make a Statement on the situation as we understand it. I hope and believe that the people of Zimbabwe will hear one message from this House: that we stand with them at this moment of opportunity and that we share their demand for a democratic future. ““For obvious reasons, the delicacy of the current situation means that I and, I am sure, all honourable Members will want to choose our words carefully, given the risk that what we say will be distorted. That does not mean that there are not some fundamental points that need to be expressed. ““I have within the last 30 minutes spoken to our ambassador in Harare. The situation is fluid. Zimbabwe’s political, civic and economic leaders are clearly engaged in intensive discussions. The full results of the parliamentary elections are still unclear. The latest tally is that 188 seats have been declared and 80 remain to be declared. The two main parties are running neck and neck. There is still no formal announcement about the key presidential election. ““Though the situation in Harare is tense, there is no suggestion of crowds massing and no reports of violence. But it is not business as usual: many schools are still closed and people are watching and waiting to see what will happen. ““Let me assure the House that through both political and official channels there has been a high degree of contact and consultation. The Prime Minister, Lord Malloch-Brown and I have been in touch with Presidents, Prime Ministers and Foreign Ministers in southern Africa and around the world. There is an international consensus that the will of the Zimbabwean people must be understood and respected. ““The people of Zimbabwe have made their choice. Outside the 9,400 polling stations, the tallies have been posted. The Zimbabwean Electoral Commission knows what those results are and has simply to announce them. The delay in announcing the outcome can only be seen as a deliberate and calculated tactic. It gives substance to the suspicion that the authorities are reluctant to accept the will of the people. They have a responsibility to do so, and Zimbabwe’s neighbours, who have borne a significant share of the burden of Zimbabwe’s collapse, have a responsibility to ensure that that occurs. ““No one in this House would want me to hand ZANU-PF a propaganda coup by endorsing one candidate or another, or by taking it on myself to announce the result. In truth, in spite of what President Mugabe would want the world to believe, the crisis in Zimbabwe has never been about personalities. It is not a bilateral dispute between British and Zimbabwean politicians or anyone else. It has always been about the policies that Robert Mugabe and his Government have chosen to follow and the terrible destruction that has been wreaked on the Zimbabwean people. ““The situation preceding these elections was shocking. The conditions for free and fair elections were not in place. The playing field was tilted heavily in favour of ZANU-PF. Up to 4 million people who had fled Zimbabwe’s crisis could not vote. In some areas, between 18 per cent and 20 per cent of those who tried to vote were frustrated by the inaccurate electoral roll. We will probably never know how many dead people on that roll cast ghost votes. But we do know that, in spite of those problems, millions of ordinary Zimbabweans still queued peacefully and voted. Now they are holding their breath: will their country reverse the spiral of decline or exacerbate it? ““The facts speak for themselves: life expectancy has halved to an average of 34, nearly 2,500 AIDS-related deaths occur per week, inflation is practically incalculable and day-to-day abuse of human rights and freedoms is commonplace. ““Britain has always supported the Zimbabwean people through the pain of their national trauma. We are the second largest bilateral donor and spent over £40 million last year on aid. Our support provided HIV treatment for more than 30,000 HIV patients and helped the World Food Programme to feed up to 3 million people—about one quarter of Zimbabwe’s population. ““We will continue with our support. We want to do more to encourage development within Zimbabwe. When there is real and positive policy change on the ground, Britain will play a full part in supporting recovery. We know that the Zimbabwean people face a massive rebuilding task. We will help them to do that with EU and international colleagues. But that can happen only when and if there is a return to real democracy and good governance in Zimbabwe. ““We will continue to do all that we can to encourage that to happen and to encourage other countries in the region to exert what influence they have over the situation in Zimbabwe. Those with greatest influence in Zimbabwe are those closest to Zimbabwe, but we are clear that the situation will not be one that Africans alone have to carry the burden of supporting. ““Our ambassador and the embassy staff, both local and UK-based, are working tirelessly in difficult circumstances. They are in very close contact with a wide range of Zimbabweans and stand ready to offer consular assistance to the many British nationals in Zimbabwe. ““Many honourable Members have been tireless advocates for the people of Zimbabwe. The people of Zimbabwe have suffered for too long. Every British citizen will yearn with them for that suffering to end and for it to end now. I shall of course seek to keep the House fully informed of events and the Government’s further actions to influence them””. Further to the Statement delivered by my right honourable friend in the other place yesterday, I would like to update the House on developments overnight. The results of 207 Assembly seats have now been announced. The final three results will be decided by by-election. The tally gives the MDC—Morgan Tsvangirai’s party—99 seats, ZANU-PF 97 seats and the remaining candidates 11 seats. There are still no results for the 60 Senate seats and no announcement has been made concerning the result of the key presidential election. More than four and a half days have passed since the polling stations closed. The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission knows the remaining results. I reiterate that it should announce them immediately, without further delay. I am placing a copy of this Statement in the Vote Office and in the Library of the House of Commons.