African Voices Matter Most

African Union observer mission to Zimbabwe was headed by former Federal Republic of Nigeria military leader and president Olusegun Obasanjo and Dr. Aisha Abdullahi of the AU political affairs commsions. They endorsed the elections as free and fair., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

African voices matter most

August 9, 2013 Opinion & Analysis
Zimbabwe Herald
Mukachana Hanyani

Harmonised elections which gave Zanu-PF over two-thirds majority in Parliament should act as a wake up call for MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai to realise that Zimbabweans have spoken and that he should accept defeat and retire from politics for the betterment of Zimbabwe. Tsvangirai’s claims that elections were rigged are just a ploy from a defeated person who was full of confidence.

He should appreciate that in every contest there is a winner and a loser. One should know that it is impossible to have two winners when dealing with numbers.

You may be defeated by just a single vote and that can translate to a win for the other contestant.

It is an open secret that in any election there are always two results at stake. There is a winner and a loser, happiness and sadness so such portfolios come with victims to occupy them and in this case President Mugabe won and Tsvangirai lost.

Observer teams from the African Union, Sadc, Comesa; African, Caribbean and Pacific countries all declared the harmonised elections as free and fair and that they reflected the will of the people.

As such, African voices were at hand to declare the elections free and fair with no bias but using facts on the ground. Those teams were on the ground before elections and they managed to observe and attend some of the campaign rallies that the political parties were holding before the elections.

They went on to witness the peaceful environment that obtained before, during and after the elections. The teams were also convinced that there was no intimidation of the electorate to make them vote for people they did not like.

The observer teams also witnessed the voting patterns as well as the counting processes around the country. They were well informed on everything that took place before, during and after elections.

The African observer teams that declared the elections as free and fair had a reason of coming up with such a conclusion as there was nothing to suggest that the elections were rigged.

Even some of the observer teams that came outside the African continent declared the harmonised elections as free and fair.

Russia, China, the December 12 Movement and other observer teams were satisfied that the harmonised elections were free and fair and that they reflected the people’s choice.

Surprisingly European countries, the Americas and Australia with no observer teams on the ground jumped the gun and declared that the elections were not free and fair. It is a shame for such countries with a big brother mentality to declare the elections as not free and fair when they did not observe the process. They should realise that Zimbabwe is an African country which is guided by African principles.

This country managed to hold peaceful elections which were observed by African countries.

As such, African countries declared elections the free and fair, but the West rushed to try to discredit the elections.

The West wanted Morgan Tsvangirai to win, but they failed to realise that Africa in general and Zimbabwe in particular are no longer colonies.

They failed to realise that in Zimbabwe people are mature to the extent that they can hold peaceful elections without the aid of the western countries.

Now that their preferred candidate was severely trounced home and away by the revolutionary party, they rushed to conclude that elections were not free and fair.

The West should ask themselves why Morgan Tsvangirai`s MDC-T failed to win even in his home area in Buhera. They should realise that they wasted their effort by supporting a wrong candidate and the best they can do now is to advise Tsvangirai that in politics you win some and lose some.

It is surprising that they went on to advise him to go to the courts to challenge such a landslide victory, instead of advising him to accept defeat.

The problem with Tsvangirai is that since day one of him being a politician, he thought of himself as one who would take over the presidency of Zimbabwe from President Mugabe. He did not imagine himself failing to occupy that highest post in the country.

His political shenanigans since his time as secretary general of ZCTU were to unseat Zanu-PF and become the first man in the country to be recognised as having unseated the revolutionary party from power.

He did not imagine himself falling from grace to dust as evidenced by the elections outcome.

Tsvangirai, who during campaign time was going around the country claiming that Zanu PF was planning to rig elections instead of selling his manifesto to the electorate, should have seen the writing on the wall that his days as a political leader were numbered.

Massive crowds that characterised Zanu-PF rallies were not fictitious.

Zanu PF with its indigenisation and economic empowerment manifesto stole the day for the electorate and the results are there for everyone to see. So Tsvangirai should have himself to blame and stop being a cry baby.

He should listen to African voices who have declared elections as free and fair and stop being misled by Western countries.

Zimbabwe is neither a European nor American country so African voices should be the ones to be listened to.

It is high time Tsvangirai listens to African voices and not European or American voices.

Mukachana Hanyani is a social and political commentator based in Harare.