By Bernard Bwoni
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| 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
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.
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| Senior MDC figures; including the Secretary General; Biti admitted that they lost to a better organised ZANU PF |
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.
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| 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.
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| 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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