Harare, Zimbabwe (News of the South)-Tourism Minister Walter Mzembi’s bid for the post of UNWTO Secretary General has been thrown into a scandal a day after it seemingly seemed he was on his way to winning after the Seychelles candidate wrote to the UN to have him barred.
According to media reports Alain St. Ange, the former Seychelles’s candidate for the Secretary-General of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation(UNWTO) yesterday appealed to the United Nations to bar Walter Mzembi, the candidate for Zimbabwe from the election.
The former Seychelles Tourism Minister claims that the African Union blackmailed his country and threatened it with sanctions in order to get him to withdraw from the race.
However the publication which aired the news, Pindula News, is known for its opposition to the current government of Zimbabwe.
The move by St Ange has however been dismissed by some high ranking an official from the UNWTO and two other UNWTO Secretary General candidates off the record.
According to the authorities the issue is regarded a domestic conflict in the Republic of the Seychelles unrelated to Zimbabwe or the African Union Candidate.
The elections for the UNWTO Secretary General are slated for Friday as scheduled with 5 remaining candidates.
Yesterday the Seychelles President Danny Faure chaired an extraordinary cabinet meeting at which the Seychelles Cabinet considered a formal request from the African Union Commission for Seychelles to withdraw the candidature of Mr. Alain St Ange for the election to the post of Secretary-General of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation.
The Seychelles president announced his country will stand in solidarity with the African Union and support the African Union’s officially endorsed candidate from Zimbabwe in the upcoming election.
The Seychelles president said: “The official candidate is the Hon. Walter Mzembi, Minister of Tourism and Hospitality for Zimbabwe.” Seychelles is a member of the African Union (AU). AU had presented Walter Mzembi as the African Union Candidate for UNWTO
None of the candidates eTN reached out to wanted to talk on the record, but dismissed the move by Alain St. Ange.
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