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Mr Tsvangirai

Loccaddia Chigubhu
MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai, miffed by his trouncing at the polls by President Mugabe and Zanu-PF, has, since August 1 2013, held two Press conferences as well as a diplomatic briefing where he has trashed the election as rigged. He has also held extensive consultations with his Western handlers, especially British ambassador Deborah Bronnert and Australian Ambassador Matthew Neuhaus who are both pressuring him to reject the poll outcome.
Apart from the continued hand-holding of Tsvangirai by the West, MDC-T’s cause has received unbridled sympathy from the Botswana Government in general, and the Botswana Democratic Party, in particular.

In the run up to the election, the BDP provided campaign T-shirts to the MDC-T. The Botswana Embassy in Zimbabwe also acted as a courier for MDC-T by transmitting US$1,5 million for that party, which, was collected from the embassy by MDC-T Director of Elections, Dennis Murira.

In a related incident, when the Botswana component of the Sadc Parliamentary Forum (Sadc-PF) arrived in Zimbabwe, it was called for a briefing at that country’s embassy – which briefing depicted Zimbabwe’s electoral process in negative terms. The negative picture was intended to influence the team to produce a damning observation report in the event that Zanu-PF won the election. No wonder Tsvangirai, as he wound up his election campaign, referred to president Ian Khama of Botswana as “my friend”.

The current drama started on Thursday morning, August 1 2013, when after learning from his party’s Parallel Voter Tabulation System, that he was facing the mother of all defeats, Tsvangirai immediately consulted his handlers, who advised him to hold a Press conference at Harvest House denouncing the election as a “huge farce” as well as calling on Sadc and the African Union to declare the elections illegitimate. The press statement marked the first salvo fired against Zanu-PF’s victory as the MDC-T and western diplomats tried to arm twist regional and international observer missions into declaring that the elections were not free and fair.

Earlier on the same day and as part of the west’s strategy to discredit the peaceful, free and fair polls in case of a Zanu-PF win, the Zimbabwe Election Support Network, a USAID/IRI sponsored appendage of the MDC-T condemned the election as farcical. Prior to the elections, ZESN received US$4 million from the Fishmongers Group which comprises the EU, Australia, Canada and Japan embassies in Zimbabwe. Furthermore, USAID availed US$3 million to ZESN, Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition and Election Resource Centre for monitoring the harmonised elections.

While Tsvangirai continued to labour under the false hope that his handlers would pull a rabbit from their magic hat and somehow reverse the election results and declare him the winner of the presidential race, African Observer Missions and Presidents were endorsing the elections as free, fair and credible, and looking forward to President Mugabe’s inauguration.

As the day proceeded, Tsvangirai and the western diplomats separately engaged the AU Observer Mission Head, General Olusegun Obasanjo, and the Sadc Observer Mission Head, Bernard Membe in a bid to influence them to discredit the poll. In the engagement with the two Heads of Mission held at the MDC-T leader’s Highlands residence and at briefings with western diplomats at the Rainbow Towers, Tsvangirai and his puppeteers requested the former to ensure that their reports discredited the elections. However, the two separately refused to be influenced. Instead, they urged Tsvangirai and the west to rethink their ill advised strategy of discrediting the elections because the MDC-T had lost. Tsvangirai was urged to follow Constitutional means to challenge the election result.

In his remarks to members of his Observer Team, Obasanjo said that “we are in trouble now; they are forcing me to do what they want. The elections were free and fair, they are pressing me to beat Zanu-PF. I am not a voter, people voted.”

Having failed to enlist the AU and SADC Observer Missions to their cause, Tsvangirai and his handlers regrouped and held several meetings on August 2 and 3 2013. Ambassadors Bronnert and Neuhaus shuttled between their respective Embassies and Tsvangirai’s residence for closed door meetings, culminating in Tsvangirai’s meeting with diplomats accredited to Zimbabwe on August 3 2013. In between this shuttling, Tsvangirai was “being hand held” on what to say in the general meeting with the other Ambassadors and the press conference he subsequently held with local and foreign journalists. In the press statement, Tsvangirai claimed that the MDC-T national council had rejected the election outcome, yet it was clear that this decision came from Tsvangirai’s handlers who prepared the report that Tsvangirai read.

Tsvangirai’s final statement came late Saturday, August 3 2013 at his Highlands residence. The statement came on the backdrop of four statements that had been released earlier in the day by his masters. British Foreign Secretary, William Hague alleged that the election process was critically flawed. American Secretary of State, John Kerry’s statement followed the same diction as that of Hague, alleging that the election results did not represent the will of the people of Zimbabwe.

Australian foreign minister, Bob Carr took the attempt to discredit the polls a step further and called for a re-run. The European Union through its Foreign Policy Chief, Ms. Catherine Ashton, however took a middle of the road approach and said it would take its cue from the Sadc and AU.

The drama reached its crescendo on August 5 2013, when Botswana released an official statement which was read by its foreign minister Pandu Skelemani to members of the diplomatic community in Botswana. In the statement, Botswana alleged that the elections were characterised by shortcomings and irregularities and therefore did not meet the Sadc principles and guidelines governing democratic elections making them free but not fair. Additionally, Botswana called for the inclusion of the Zimbabwe elections on the agenda of the forthcoming Sadc Summit in Lilongwe, Malawi. This is despite that the Sadc Facilitator, South African President Jacob Zuma and the Sadc Troika Chair, Jakaya Kikwete have endorsed the elections.

For those who do not know Tsvangirai, this is not the first time that he has turned to his handlers for direction in the face of defeat. In the aftermath of the 2008 elections, Tsvangirai did the same thing.

He held a press conference at his home in Strathaven where he announced that he had pulled out of the run-off election and then sought refuge at the Dutch Embassy claiming that his life was in danger.