The Age
18 June 2010
ZIMBABWE’S Minister for Sport, David Coltart, hopes common sense will prevail when his country votes on John Howard’s International Cricket Council candidacy.
Coltart has been in Melbourne and Canberra this week to meet Cricket Australia and the federal government, discussing plans to resume an exchange of cricket tours with Australia while also outlining his nation’s wider progress to foreign affairs minister Stephen Smith.
Howard’s ascendancy to the ICC vice-presidency and ultimately presidency had been openly questioned by several member nations, but Coltart said he was hopeful his nation’s cricket board would support the process by which the former prime minister had been selected.
But Coltart won’t attend the ICC’s annual conference in Singapore this month.
Instead, Zimbabwe will be represented by President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF-aligned Peter Chingoka and Ozias Bvute, and Coltart cannot guarantee the direction of their vote.
”I won’t be attending because I’m Minister of Sport, and it’s a cricket matter,” Coltart said. ”In terms of Zimbabwe’s laws I do not have the power to give direction to Zimbabwe cricket.
”Aside from the legal situation, as someone who believes in democracy and the important role that civil society plays, I wouldn’t want to be giving directives – I think that’s part of the problem with world cricket and sport in general.
”So I’m simply playing a role of mediator and facilitator.”
AAP