President Mugabe greets sungura artiste Alick Macheso after his performance at the Zimbabwe Defence Forces Day celebrations at the National Sports Stadium in Harare while Vice Presidents Joice Mujuru (right), John Nkomo (left) look on., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.
Zanu-PF win decisive, incontestible: UK paper
August 14, 2013
Hebert Zharare Political Editor
Zimbabwe Herald
PRESIDENT Mugabe and Zanu-PF decisively won the harmonised elections, obviating the need for any challenge legal or otherwise, the British establishment paper The Guardian has said.The Electoral Court is today set to hear MDC-T leader Mr Morgan Tsvangirai’s application seeking election material to support his application at the Constitutional Court seeking nullification of the results of the harmonised elections.
The Guardian, which over the past year consistently tipped Zanu-PF to win the elections, along with the Telegraph, ran news analyses on Election Day tipping Zanu-PF to romp to victory over MDC-T.
In an article headlined “How an exultant Robert Mugabe took on the world and won Zimbabwe” written by Richard Dowden, The Guardian said the margin of Zanu-PF’s victory negated any contestation.
“Yes everyone assumed the MDC would win and so became complacent. And had the result been a 51percent — 49 percent split, there might have been a case to challenge it. But a 61percent — 33 percent victory is decisive. Zanu-PF also won 150 (161 seats) of the 210 parliamentary seats, a two-thirds majority which allows it to change the Constitution and amend laws,” reads the report.
The paper attributed MDC-T’s dismal performance to party leader Mr Morgan Tsvangirai’s lack of leadership skills to draw Zimbabweans together into a vision of a new Zimbabwe and political and managerial skills to make it happen.
President Mugabe, the paper said, had managed to rally all Zimbabweans behind him while Mr Tsvangirai failed to advocate the change he was preaching.
The paper further asserts that many people voted for President Mugabe because he is a well respected and principled leader.
President Mugabe, The Guardian argued, was not under pressure to co-opt losers into his Government, but could do it out of his benevolence.
“I also suspect (President) Mugabe will now go into reconciliation mode as he did after his first (also unpredicted) election victory of 1980. Now he will deploy his considerable charm and hold out a hand to African and Western governments that have criticised him in the past.
"At home he may offer posts in Government to MDC leaders, maybe even to (Mr) Tsvangirai himself.”
Over the past week, the British media have sounded the death knell for the embattled MDC-T leader, urging him to resign as he has failed as a politician.
This comes in the wake of the MDC-T leader’s third but most devastating defeat by President Mugabe.
The Telegraph, one of the largest circulating papers in the United Kingdom and a strong supporter of the MDC-T, said Mr Tsvangirai’s short stint in Government had exposed his immeasurable shortcomings as a leader while the BBC said the MDC-T leader now stared political oblivion.
MDC-T’s local media sympathiser, The Daily News, also weighed in by urging Zimbabweans to move on.
Political analyst and Midlands State University lecturer Dr Nhamo Mhiripiri said the British lost faith in Mr Tsvangirai’s leadership long back and that their media comments were testimony to that effect.
“The truth is they are now re-strategising their new British- Zimbabwe relations that will go beyond the MDC-T. They may have found it wise to go with Zanu-PF now. Stability will pay in terms of their investments in Zimbabwe as well as exploiting other resources,” he said.
Dr Mhiripiri said the fact that British papers were dissuading the MDC-T from pursuing court actions means they have realised that the events leading to and after polls were pointing to stability in Zimbabwe.
“Stability matters much more than the so-called democracy. Look at the Egypt type of democracy, it has become a handicap to politics and business,” he said.
Another political analyst, Mr Gabriel Chaibva, said the vitriol from the British papers was clear testimony that their Government was no longer interested in Mr Tsvangirai as an agent of regime change in Zimbabwe.
“What is clear is that Mr Tsvangirai is finished politically. He is now history and the British are so clever to see that and that is the reason why they are saying do not go to court you are wasting our time.
“There is full realisation that he cannot change anything by going to court. Even if he is given the spoiled ballots and the people who were turned away, he will still lose to President Mugabe.
“The British have seen that he is displaying his stupidity. He just wants to continue milking the British money and they have realised that. If the truth is to be said, Mr Tsvangirai would be history now if he was a British or an American politician. All his sex scandals would have buried him a long time ago. The man is morally bankrupt. His application is just academic and a hypothetical exercise,” he said.
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