Zimbabweans face bloodbath at the polls- says the headline on today’s Scotsman website.
That has been the trend of reporting since President Robert Mugabe announced yesterday that the country will hold its elections next month and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai said Mugabe’s announcement was unlawful and unconstitutional.
Fears of violence are all based on what happened in 2008, in the run-up the presidential elections run-off, but comparing the two ignores two fundamental things.
There was no violence in the run-up to the 2008 elections in March. All political parties were given access to the public media. Results were posted outside polling stations.
Problems only started after the polls when it merged that Mugabe had lost to Tsvangirai. But even then, the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front bought time- April May and June to launch their violent campaign.
In this election, Mugabe only announced the poll date with 48 days to the election. No one knows the candidates yet. The campaign has not officially started. When it does, candidates will only have 33 days to the polls.
But the most important factor proponents of violence ignore is that though Mugabe won the presidential election of 2008, by default, no one really recognised this victory. Yes, they accepted it, but they did not recognise it.
Mugabe has been fighting for legitimacy for over a decade. That is what he is after. He needs a decent exit into retirement.
His main rival, Morgan Tsvangirai has been fighting for a return of the rule of law for more than a decade, but what he has been arguing about over the last three months leaves a lot of questions.
Why is he now suddenly fussy about reforms when he has been in government, sitting and talking to Mugabe, probably daily, for the past four years?
The more one reads about the ranting from Tsvangirai and Biti- though they sometimes don’t talk the same language- the more one is reminded of the run-up to the 2005 elections.
The MDC had two strategies in 2005. Plan A was to win elections and Plan B was to discredit them.
Tsvangirai told United States embassy officials that the party’s Plan B was to paint the elections as having been inherently unfair, that the MDC had only participated out of deference to the wishes of its supporters, and that neither the party, the region, or the international community should recognise another illegitimate election.
He said this 57 days before the elections.
The question is: Are we seeing a repeat?
Full cable:
Viewing cable 05HARARE180, OPPOSITION LEADER POSTPONES WASHINGTON VISIT,
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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 HARARE 000180
SIPDIS
AF/S FOR D. MOZENA, B. NEULING
NSC FOR SENIOR AFRICA DIRECTOR C. COURVILLE
E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/08/2009
SUBJECT: OPPOSITION LEADER POSTPONES WASHINGTON VISIT,
PREVIEWS ELECTIONS
Classified By: Ambassador Christopher W. Dell under Section 1.4 b/d
¶1. (C) SUMMARY: MDC President Morgan Tsvangirai told the
Ambassador on February 2 that he needed to stay in Zimbabwe
to focus on the upcoming parliamentary elections instead of
traveling to the United States and Canada next week as
earlier planned. Tsvangirai was optimistic about the party’s
chances as it prepared to re-enter the campaign arena with
resurgent energy. He said that the party was exploiting new
campaign space and a surprisingly tolerant posture by the
police. The party would redouble its outreach to civil
society, with which it continued to have differences. END
SUMMARY.
Washington Trip Off
—————
¶2. (C) During a meeting at the Residence, Tsvangirai said
the press of election-related business and the fact that key
Administration officials would be out of town, especially the
Secretary, had led him to defer his planned trip to New York
SIPDIS
and Washington. He added that the visit might be more
appropriate after the election in any eventsince the
government would almost certainly have tried to make
political capital out of a visit at this time by accusing him
of running off to Washington “to get orders from Bush” the
minute elections were called.
Plan A: Win the Election
——————
¶3. (C) Emerging from the first day of a two-day meeting of
the MDC’s national executive to discuss the election, an
upbeat Tsvangirai described intra-party atmospherics as
uplifting. The party had finished candidate selection for
the parliamentary races with little of the rancor associated
with ZANU-PF’s primary process. Tsvangirai would not
forecast the party’s likely seat count in the election, which
has been set for March 31, but said the MDC would “win.” He
quickly sketched MDC prospects across the country. He
predicted that the MDC would hold its seats in Harare and
Bulawayo, excluding the three seats recently gerry-mandered
out; would increase its representation Manicaland and
Masvingo; would win most urban seats and possibly a couple of
rural ones in Midlands, and Mashonaland East, West and
Central. Elaborating on campaign priorities, Tsvangirai said
sitting urban MPs were essentially on their own. The party
leadership, including Tsvangirai, would focus its energies
principally on marginal constituencies. Unlike their ZANU-PF
counterparts, MDC MPs had little to deliver their
constituencies in terms of basic wants, and would have to
rely in many cases on “basic minimum social interventions”
and show a strong physical presence in their districts.
¶4. (C) Tsvangirai was optimistic that the party would be
able to exploit growing political space. He was encouraged
by the numbers and enthusiasm he was seeing at rallies
throughout the country. The impending reinstatement of the
Daily News and access to Zimbabwe television in March would
prove decisive in overcoming voter apathy and getting out the
vote. (Note: Rumors are flying that the GOZ will permit
resumed operations by The Daily News, the daily independent
shut down by the GOZ in 2003, upon the issuance of an
expected Supreme Court decision in the paper’s favor on
February 7. End Note.) The police’s increasingly
constructive posture was potentially pivotal; he noted that
police leadership had approached the party leadership to
coordinate security, including in some rural areas. Local
party structures were effectively using Police Commissioner
Chihuri’s publicized statements insisting on tolerance and
non-violence in resisting customary local ruling party
efforts to forcibly conscript people for party rallies. He
reported that local ZANU-PF structures in some areas were
challenged by their leadership’s public directives on
non-violence and were pleading the leadership to be unleashed
if the party wanted to win. Tsvangirai concluded that the
overconfident ZANU-PF leadership had lost its base and was in
a dilemma that it might not fully appreciate as to the
pivotal role played by fear in its control over the country.
He added that the MDC would structure its campaign so as to
keep ZANU-PF complacent. There would be no mass rallies this
time around that could alert the ruling party to the MDC,s
popularity and that might provoke violence or fraud.
¶5. (C) Tsvangirai said that the MDC would run on a platform
built on the need for change. Rule of law, human rights,
land use, education, housing, jobs, economic reconstruction
would all be issues but the main theme would be the need to
end the &criminality8 of ZANU-PF rule. He added that in
the event the MDC won a majority in parliament it would in
essence make the country ungovernable in order to drive
President Mugabe from power. Its first order of business
would be to repeal repressive legislation such as POSA,
AIPPA, and the NGO bill. He said that under the Zimbabwe
constitution, the president could only veto a bill twice, if
parliament subsequently passed the bill again, it would
become law after 60 days. Finally, he noted that an MDC
majority in parliament would also work to amend the
constitution to remove the president,s power to name the
government without parliamentary approval.
Plan B: a Little Vague
—————–
¶6. (C) According to Tsvangirai, the party had been working
on a “Plan B” if the election results proved untenable. The
main ideas were to paint the elections as having been
inherently unfair, that the MDC had only participated out of
deference to the wishes of its supporters, and that neither
the party, the region, or the international community should
recognize another illegitimate election. The party would
also maintain pressure on the regime by keeping its
supporters motivated and it would use whatever foothold it
retained in Parliament to obstruct the ruling party’s
legislative and constitutional plans.
Skepticism on Civil Society, South Africa
———————
¶7. (C) On the Ambassador’s inquiry, the MDC leader reported
that he would be meeting within the next few days with ZCTU
and civil society figures to discuss strategies. He
acknowledged continued differences with some, notably
Lovemore Madhuku’s National Constitutional Assembly, and was
dismissive of others, but said they “were coming around.”
¶8. (C) Turning to South Africa, Tsvangirai asserted that the
ANC leadership had gradually shifted away from ZANU-PF. He
worried, nonetheless, that the spy scandal had weakened
Mbeki’s hand and the Mugabe would more freely snub him and
SAG efforts.
Coltart’s Take
————
¶9. (C) During a meeting at the Embassy earlier in the day,
MDC Shadow Minister of Justice David Coltart told the
Ambassador that party spirits were indeed high as it prepared
to re-enter the race officially. He said that he had not
seen such numbers at his own rallies in a long time and party
structures were stronger and better organized than ever
before. The regime was fragile, and would be susceptible to
breakdown given the right spark. Its recent purge of “Young
Turks” left the ruling party with even fewer capable leaders,
exacerbating its problems in managing the Parliament and
policy agendas.
¶10. (C) Nonetheless, he predicted that the party would win
only 25 seats in the election because of various forms of
ruling party rigging. He said intimidation and official
harassment continued to be impediments for MDC candidates, as
reflected by the detentions of MDC MPs Chamisa and Thuke in
recent weeks. (Note: Each was released within 24 hours, as
is customary in such cases. End note.) Coltart emphasized
the importance of international pressure on Zimbabwe, and in
that vein complimented the President’s and Secretary Rice’s
recent public remarks about the need to confront tyranny. He
stressed the pivotal role of USG assistance in the survival
of democratic forces and civil society in Zimbabwe but
expressed concern that the strong messages coming from
Washington would be offset by shrinking resources for
democratic forces in Zimbabwe.
Comment
——–
¶11. (C) The MDC is re-energized by the continued opening of
campaign space, by the surprisingly tolerant posture of the
police, and by the prospects for more media coverage. Many
MDC leaders are genuinely optimistic about their prospects in
this election, even as they are preparing the groundwork for
protests should they lose. The MDC’s February 3 official
announcement that it would participate in elections (e-mailed
to AF/S) echoed Coltart’s dismal assessment of Zimbabwe’s
election environment and was at odds with Tsvangirai’s more
upbeat appraisal. It was, however, consistent with MDC plans
to protest the tilted playing field in the event of electoral
defeat. That said, the biggest obstacle to their electoral
prospects may not be renewed violence or fraud on the part of
the ruling party. Rather, it may be their inability to
articulate a clear message of how an MDC parliament will make
people,s lives better and thereby energize an otherwise
passive, already intimidated electorate. Tsvangirai offered
few details of the MDC,s platform or its positive message.
Instead, 50 days before the election, one has the sense that
he believes the election will be a referendum on ZANU-PF
misrule and that the MDC has only to call attention to that
misrule to win.
DELL
(32 VIEWS)
