The secret that Roy Bennett died with

Historian, Blessing-Miles Tendi wrote in The Guardian in 2013 that one of the reasons why the MDC-T lost the elections was that the West had abandoned the party and its campaign was poorly financed.

“A largely unstated factor so far in debates about how ZANU-PF won this election is that for the first time in years the MDC-T ran a less effective campaign because of financial constraints. As MDC-T insiders have revealed to me, the party’s traditional Western backers were not as forthcoming with financial support as they were in 2008,” he wrote.

“During the campaigns Tsvangirai publicly criticised the West for giving up on removing Mugabe from power in preference for eventual accommodation with the Zimbabwean president. The West has been unequivocal in its public condemnation of ZANU-PF’s victory but in the coming weeks it must answer hard questions about why it abandoned the MDC-T financially prior the election.”

The questions that were never answered were: Did the Global Alliance for Zimbabwe raise any money for the elections? If it did what happened to the money?

The Insider contacted Bennett for comment and he said he would respond later but he never did despite repeated reminders.

Makone did not have a clue if the organisations raised any money or not.

Tsvangirai said he did not know about the organisations at all.

 “We have not been aware of the setting up of the two organisations. If they were set up in the name of the party, the party President was never made aware of it. For more information on the two Foundations, we refer all questions to the former treasurer-general of the party who may have the information,” Tsvangirai’s spokesman Luke Tamborinyoka said.

The organisations were deregistered in 2014 and The Insider has so far been unable to establish whether they raised any money or not.

It is, however, very difficult to convince anyone that the two organisations failed to raise money because of the high profile of its board.  Besides they roped in top US lobbyists.

Bennett was the chairman of the boards of the two organisations. Some of the board members were Larry LaRocco, who was Bennett’s deputy. Larocco was described as a former two-term United States Congressman from Idaho.

Other board members were Ambassador J.D. Bindenagel, James McGee and Kevin James.

Ambassador J.D. Bindenagel was the vice president for Community, Government and International Affairs at DePaul University. He served for 28 years in the US diplomatic corps.

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