{"id":15014,"date":"2012-09-27T17:00:27","date_gmt":"2012-09-27T15:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/09\/zimbabwes-mugabe-wants-elections-in-march\/"},"modified":"2012-09-27T17:00:27","modified_gmt":"2012-09-27T15:00:27","slug":"zimbabwes-mugabe-wants-elections-in-march","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/zimbabwes-mugabe-wants-elections-in-march\/","title":{"rendered":"Zimbabwe&#8217;s Mugabe wants elections in March"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Mugabe seeks court&#8217;s nod to defer by-elections<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Referendum on new constitution set for November<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Cash-strapped government needs $270 mln for polls<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>By Nelson Banya<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>HARARE, Sept 27 (Reuters) &#8211; Zimbabwean President Robert<br \/>\nMugabe wants to hold elections in March, court papers showed on<br \/>\nThursday, a timetable that could cause tension with his<br \/>\ncoalition partners and regional leaders who first want reforms<br \/>\nto avoid a repeat of 2008 poll violence.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Mugabe, who has ruled the former British colony since<br \/>\nindependence in 1980, was forced to form a government with rival<br \/>\nMorgan Tsvangirai, now prime minister, three years ago after the<br \/>\ndisputed 2008 election.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Under the terms of the power-sharing deal new elections must<br \/>\nbe held by next year. Mugabe&#8217;s ZANU-PF party wants the vote held<br \/>\nas early as possible, while Tsvangirai&#8217;s Movement for Democratic<br \/>\nChange says it should come after the adoption of a new<br \/>\nconstitution and electoral, security and media reforms.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The Supreme Court ordered Mugabe last month to announce<br \/>\ndates for by-elections to fill at least 26 vacant parliamentary<br \/>\nseats by the end of September.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The president has made a fresh application to the High<br \/>\nCourt, arguing the cash-strapped government cannot afford to<br \/>\nhold the by-elections, and said he intended to hold a general<br \/>\nelection in six months&#8217; time anyway.<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>* Mugabe seeks court&#8217;s nod to defer by-elections * Referendum on new constitution set for November * Cash-strapped government needs $270 mln for polls By Nelson Banya HARARE, Sept 27 (Reuters) &#8211; Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe wants to hold elections in March, court papers showed on Thursday, a timetable that could cause tension with his [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-15014","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15014\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}