Some African Leaders Call For Free Elections in Zimbabwe, But Not In Their Countries

June 26, 2008 NAIROBI, KENYA— -- While many African leaders are calling for President Robert Mugabe to postpone Zimbabwe's presidential run-off election tomorrow, some who are pointing the finger face similar allegations of electoral fraud and intimidation in their own countries.

Leaders of the African Union (AU) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), whose Security Troika, consisting of the presidents from Angola, Swaziland and Tanzania, met for an emergency session on Zimbabwe this week in Swaziland. But many of the elected leaders who make up the AU and SADC did not earn their powerful roles in free or fair elections themselves.

One of them is President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos of Angola. Angola is considered "not free at all," meaning it has little-to-no multi-party political system, press freedom or civil rights, according to Freedom House, a US-based group that tracks democracy worldwide. President Dos Santos has been the president of Angola for nearly 30 years. Political prisoners, rigged elections and corruption are endemic problems in Angola, say human rights groups. Just last year, Sarah Wykes, a British National working for the anti-corruption group Global Witness, was arrested in Angola and detained for over a month for investigating corruption in the country's oil sector.

Swaziland itself, where the meeting on the crisis in Zimbabwe is taking place, doesn't have any presidential elections at all. It is a monarchy where the Presidency belongs to the king, passed down hereditarily, and who also appoints the Prime Minister and runs the army.

In the AU as well, several powerhouse countries have leaders who critics say benefited from rigged elections. Nigeria, Ethiopia, Egypt and Uganda are all countries where electoral fraud including intimidation of opposition support, ballot stuffing, or unilaterally changing the country's constitution to extend or end term limits, have all allegedly been used to keep a leader in power.

Daniel Calingaert, deputy director of programs at Freedom House calls the appeals for intervention by SADC and the AU ironic.