Wednesday 30 July 2014

Tsvangirai’s London Trip: Big Fuss Over a Trifle

By Bernard Bwoni


A picture can speaks a thousand words: A disjointed panel  missing some of the
prominent MDC-T UK-based figures (conspicuous by their absence) sitting
behind a make-shift and poorly decorated table summarises Morgan's trip
31st July 2013 was a defining and watershed moment in the history of Zimbabwe. The country held peaceful and democratic elections under the new constitution, yet another milestone and extraordinary moment in the history of the country. The elections saw the end of the contentious Government of National Unity and saw the overdue re-emergence of the revolutionary party to put into place its potent people orientated policies. 

The elections were won decisively, freely and fairly and even the then MDC-T Secretary
Senior MDC figures; including the Secretary General;  Biti
admitted that they lost to a better organised ZANU PF
General Tendai Biti was honest and conceded that they lost because they were ill-prepared, lacked a convincing strategy and lost to the well-oiled ZANU-PF party. The revolutionary party won two thirds of the majority and has embarked on a country and continent-defining programme. The elections were widely endorsed by the African election observers from SADC, AU and COMESA as free, fair and credible and instantly condemned by the EU and USA who did not participate in the monitoring of the elections.

The ruling party forged ahead putting into place the details of their election manifesto into place. The economic blueprint, Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation (Zim-Asset) was presented to the country to provide clarity and guidance on mapping a way forward. Under the provisions of the Zim-Asset framework there is clarity in terms of national and economic direction. There are four clear clusters of food security, nutrition, social services and eradication of poverty, and from these there are subsectors such as value addition and beneficiation, infrastructure development and others. These clusters provide guidance and direction on how the revolutionary party will be proceeding in the economic transformation of Zimbabwe.

Fast forward to 25th July 2014, a few days before the anniversary of the 31st July 2013 elections, along comes one Mr Morgan Tsvangirai and the venue is Chatham House in London. The expectations were high as Tsvangirai was coming to historically expected home of the most passionate of Tsvangirai’s supporters. Well, so we all thought.  The usually eager and celebrity-creating British media was uncharacteristically mute about Tsvangirai’s visit. There was no fanfare, there was no tea at Number 10 Downing Street with Mr Cameron and there was no pass out parade at Buckingham Palace in honor of this nearly Nobel Prize winner. 

Shaking hands with who?: Lord Mayor of Birmingham - Heard of Him?
Well he did manage to shake hands with the Lord Mayor of Birmingham and not many, even in Birmingham have heard of him. There were some claims that he turned down an invitation to appear on the BBC’s Hard Talk for fear of being given a hard time about the disintegration of the regime change project and the election loss in 2013. Well if you believe that then cows can fly. But the bottom-line is that Morgan Tsvangirai was totally left out in the cold by the British media, British politics and relevant stakeholders to the regime-change agenda. Tsvangirai’s visit was a non-event; even Ras Pombi drew double the crowd that attended the MDC-T leader’s rally in Birmingham.

The UK has been the Centre of opposition politics since the onset of the regime-change agenda and their supporters have been more prominent. The expectation was that the venue is Birmingham was going to overflowing with supporters from all Counties but in fact the venue was as empty as Tsvangirai's pockets. The Birmingham Gala was attended by a measly 97 strong crowd, most who were from his entourage and MDC-T UK Officials. The dinner was £20 per head and if you do your mathematics right factoring in non-paying delegates, cost of venue and other overheads then it is highly likely no amount of money was raised from this social function. In fact there is a high likelihood of a loss having been made.  As stated before the venue was as empty as his party’s pockets.

The progressive and potent ZANU-PF UK chapter has been drawing way bigger crowds than Mr Tsvangirai’s hyped much ado about nothing Birmingham show. The UK which has traditionally been seen as a predominantly opposition fortress has been witnessing some statistically significant changes in Zimbabwean political demographics. At a time when MDC-T UK support has been rapidly shrinking, there has been a sudden surge in ZANU-PF support in the UK. 

Birmingham Branch Launch: ZANU PF UK Local Branch
Meetings have drawn crowds larger than the much
hyped National "Star Rally" 

The UK chapter of ZANUPF has seen several branches being launched country-wide and has also gone international with the Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg (BENELUX) launch in Amsterdam recently. More branches are earmarked for the mainland UK counties and offshore for the responsive and people-focused ZANUPF in the UK. The demand for ZANUPF cards and registration in the UK has gone viral. The difference between the two political outfits, ZANUPF-UK and MDC-T UK is that the former focuses precisely on policy, people orientated policies and there is clarity in terms of strategy and goals whilst the latter (MDC-T) focuses on demonizing the former (ZANUPF).

Tsvangirai’s London trip was an inspiration to none, a hollow and pointless exercise. He started off his London ordeal with a lifeless speech at the Chatham House Think-tank. The address at Chatham House was predominantly a whinge about what the government is not doing and no genuine attempt at presenting a shadow strategy to the country’s economic challenges. The address was a telling event with Tsvangirai providing details of what he fondly termed “global players and stakeholders’’ and what they had to say about the supposedly ‘disputed’ election in Zimbabwe. The names were exclusively ‘international’ and included US Secretary of State John Kerry, Former UK Foreign Secretary William Hague, Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs John Baird, Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr and Germany Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle and of course the ever-submissive government of Botswana. 

This exposed Tsvangirai’s naivety and suspect preoccupation with what he fondly terms ‘the international community’. The names Tsvangirai provided here are from countries that did not participate in the monitoring of the general election. There are no names of the African countries that actually monitored and concluded that the elections were free, fair and credible. Tsvangirai’s address was not reassuring, as at most it was a public quest for readmission to the elite neoliberal circles he so thrives in. Here is a man regurgitating the party line of ‘chaos in Zimbabwe and begging for more handholding from the ‘international community’.

Tsvangirai also made a futile attempt at mentioning the state of the economy and presented some spurious and ill-researched economic indicators from the World Bank’s Doing Business Report ranks. What Tsvangirai does not realise about these Doing Business indicators is that they are highly subjective and not symptoms of the economic downturn facing the country. Zimbabwe needs solutions and not meaningless indicators. He also made some sweeping statements about the liquidity crunch, FDI flows into the country and he also mentioned a US$1 billion figure that was ‘spirited out of the economy barely a week after the election’.

In the final part of his address Tsvangirai made a feeble attempt at ‘mapping a way forward’ and his first statement was about national dialogue and from that he seemed to be eluding to another government of national unity. Tsvangirai termed it ‘an internationally brokered national dialogue of all stakeholders’ and we know very well who he is referring to when he talks about the ‘international community’.

He chastised the government’s Look East policy saying it had not yielded direct financial support. It is however an open secret that China is currently the country’s biggest source of FDI. Figures from the World Investment Report (2013) indicate that FDI inflows from China in 2013 amounted to in excess of US$400 million whilst those from the EU countries fell below the US$100 million mark. Even the EU has been borrowing money off China.

Tsvangirai continued with his painfully tedious monologue about dialogue and re-engagement with the EU yet seemed oblivious to the fact that the government of Zimbabwe has remained widely open to positive re-engagement with all its international development partners, former and present. Following on from the landslide victory in 2013, the government has put emphasis on economic revival.

There has been a genuine commitment from the ruling party to address the issues of re-engagement with the ‘international community’, employment creation and regenerating the desolate and dilapidated infrastructure. 

The finance minister Patrick Chinamasa recently went to the IMF and World Bank as part of the re-engagement process and to reopen lines of credit and attract the much needed direct foreign investment. The IMF has placed Zimbabwe on a Staff Monitoring Programme (SMP) as a condition for re-engagement with Zimbabwe if successfully implemented. The Confederation of Zimbabwe Industry delegation was also recently on an EU wide re-engagement drive. Minister Chinamasa has been working tirelessly working and currently on an international drive to redirect FDI inflows into the country.


Tsvangirai went on to lay down ‘the conditions’ for the removal of sanctions saying ‘removal of sanctions without a framework that plods and entices the nation towards full democratic values’. This is very disturbing and we have history to back this claim. This is the man who has advocated privately for the continuation of the economic sanctions against the country and now he comes to London with his sanctions-begging bowel extended with. The sanctions are illegal and should never have been imposed in the first place.

 It is Tsvangirai and his clueless lieutenants who advocated for these devastating economic sanctions and when he starts globe-trotting and canoodling with the infamous ‘international community’ then Zimbabweans need to seriously start worrying.

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Bernard Bwoni is a member of ZANU PF UK and is the Secretary General of the SW England Branch

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