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Mr Tsvangirai

THE absence of violence before, during and after the harmonised elections posed a headache to Morgan Tsvangirai and company as it put their plans of using violence as the reason for losing to Zanu PF, obviously citing intimidation of their supporters, into disarray. As it turned out, going by the results that have been announced so far, Zimbabweans have shown a greater level of maturity; they completely desisted from violence to vote peacefully for a leader of their choice, in the process putting Tsvangirai’s plans into disarray.

The man would have wanted violence to use to abet his claims of election rigging. But Sadc, AU and Comesa observer teams have put paid his claims by announcing the elections credible despite Tsvangirai’s utterances to the contrary.

What has clearly emerged is that Tsvangirai was never in the election in the first place in so far as he did not have any policy to anchor his campaign on. The level of policy bankruptcy was so shocking that Tsvangirai failed to sell himself to the electorate in terms of what he and his party represented to sway the vote to his side.
His utterances before, during and after the election clearly showed he was a man who went into the election knowing he was in it to lose it, which is why he

campaigned to discredit the vote from day one. It would have even shocked him if he had won the election. People wanted to hear his policy direction, which is what President Mugabe was able to do at all the 10 star rallies that he addressed.

Tsvangirai never planned to win the election but rather planned to dispute the election outcome. The man spent much of his time attacking the electoral process, flooding the courts with applications and appeals and telling his supporters that he had information Zanu-PF planned to rig the elections that is why there had not been any violence. Really!

People did not attend rallies to be told unsubstantiated things but to hear how the party intended to bring about “change” to their lives, instead they were subjected to sex education, unwarranted threats against imaginary enemies and bragging about the 2-hactare plot Tsvangirai’s mother holds in Buhera.

The man spent time attacking chiefs, attacking the police, attacking journalists and the judiciary and even attacking the same electorate he expected to get support from. And for anyone in their right senses to think they can win a national election, let alone a village election, lambasting the chiefs who are representative of the electorate, really beats us.

In the eyes of Tsvangirai, everyone is an enemy and we are therefore not surprised at all to hear him threatening to violate the Electoral Act by announcing the election results ahead of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission. We are not surprised as that is exactly what a man facing oblivion would naturally do, given that in a few days he will have vacated the Munhumutapa Offices as he will be out of Government.

President Mugabe, announced a few days ago that he would respect any outcome of the elections; that if he wins he would accept it and if he loses, he would still accept the result, talk of a true statesman and you have that man in President Mugabe.

Many of us thought Tsvangirai would take a leaf from Cde Mugabe and show the nation that he also has respect for the country’s electoral processes, by announcing the same but it was not to be as the man has shown that to him, a competition only has one outcome if it is going to be credible – a win for him and nothing else. A loss is never for him and if it comes his way, then it must be contested.

Mr Tsvangirai you should by now know that every contest has three possible outcomes a win, a loss or a stalemate; you either win or lose and you must be prepared for whatever outcome as the outcome choice does not reside with you but with the electorate.

Our advice to Mr Tsvangirai is desist from making utterances aimed at fomenting violence, mislead the people and encourage people to break the law. A leader does not do such things. A leader does things right, always.

We would have thought that the time you spent interacting with President Mugabe in Cabinet and during the Monday teas would have made you learn one or two things from a man revered world wide.

It must be made very clear to Tsvangirai that the police will not hesitate to arrest him and his supporters if they illegally announce the election result as such mandate is given only to ZEC and this is according to the                   law.

You must show grace in defeat, Mr Tsvangirai and instead of wailing and making unnecessary threats to incite your supporters into believing you have been cheated, you should actually be reflecting on where you and your party went wrong and probably work on the weaknesses for future elections, if you are still the leader of your party.