Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options

Southern Africa’s Catholic bishops urged the region’s governments to intervene in Zimbabwe, where they warned elections would be “dangerously premature” if held this year. “Conditions in the country are emphatically not conducive to elections in 2011,” the Inter-Regional Meeting of the Bishops of Southern Africa said in a statement on Feb. 22 addressed to Angola’s President José Eduardo dos Santos, who heads the Southern African Development Community. Zimbabwe has not yet scheduled elections, but President Robert Mugabe has said they would be held this year. The bishops said reports have emerged that Mugabe is preparing to restrict freedom of association among the people, impose stricter limits on the media and use an outdated voters’ roll. “The nation is in the grip of extreme fear, polarization is still evident” and there are “increasing signs of intimidation” and violence as the election campaign builds, they said.

Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.

The latest from america

Some polls are going as far to predict that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak might lose his own seat on July 4. He would be the first Conservative prime minister to suffer such a humiliation.
David StewartJuly 01, 2024
“The Eucharist is the food that makes us hungry,” says Eucharistic Revival preacher Joe Laramie, S.J., so when he preaches, he hopes to stir his congregation “to deeper hunger for the Lord, to grow in deeper devotion to him.”
PreachJuly 01, 2024
The Vatican’s first auditor general, Libero Milone, who was forced to resign in June 2017, claims he was framed and says Pope Francis was deceived by Cardinal Angelo Becciu.
Gerard O’ConnellJuly 01, 2024
"Magdalene: I am the utterance of my name" is advocating for setting the record straight on one of Christianity’s most vital disciples.
Michael O’BrienJune 28, 2024