MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai yesterday said he has not given up on the quest to expose the rigging that his party claims delivered victory to Zanu PF.
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Yesterday, Tsvangirai said MDC-T would be taking the issue up with the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) despite the regional bloc’s endorsement of the poll result
Responding to questions from journalists at Chikurubi Prison in Harare — after visiting incarcerated MDC-T members including the party deputy national chairman Morgan Komichi — Tsvangirai said the Sadc Election Observer Mission final report released on Monday was apparently biased in favour of Zanu PF. “I have been advised of the so-called final report. The so-called report is an endorsement of the previous report,” he said. “What I fail to read in the report is that first and foremost the Maputo (Sadc) Summit was very clear that certain conditions, reforms, have to be implemented before a free and fair election can be conducted.
“Secondly, Sadc has got guidelines (but) they don’t even make reports as to whether the election passed the test with regards to those guidelines. I am actually disappointed that certain narratives coming out of the report indicate that they are Zanu PF narratives.
“How does a report of observers talk about sanctions — that parties were campaigning for sanctions and that is why they lost. Talk about pirate radio stations. I think there is nothing new; this is a mere endorsement of what they had already endorsed, so there is nothing surprising.” Sadc observer chief of mission and Tanzanian Foreign Affairs minister Bernard Membe said the polls had been “free, peaceful and generally credible” punching holes into the MDC-T case that the elections were “rigged”.
“We will be visiting the chairperson of Sadc (Malawian President Joyce Banda), the chairperson of the Troika (Namibian President Hifikepunye Pohamba) and the Facilitator (South African President Jacob Zuma) just to say perhaps you arrived at this conclusion erroneously. Whether they won’t review (the matter), that is neither here nor there, but what I want to do is to engage Sadc because we can’t avoid Sadc,” Tsvangirai said. “We want to engage Sadc on the facts on the ground. Whether that will have any effect that is another matter.”
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The MDC-T leader said his party would continue to lead the struggle to remove President Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF party through peaceful means. “Why should we have an Egypt and why should the MDC craft an Egypt style revolution?” Tsvangirai asked. “I have said before (that) you don’t act on emotion, but you act on conviction. That is a more sustainable basis than to act in emotion.
“I believe further consultations with the people will actually reveal that the struggle has to continue, but it has to continue more out of conviction rather than emotion. People want instant coffee; they want instant solutions to their plight.
“The whole nation is in mourning but unfortunately the nature of the struggle we are having is a struggle where you are fighting a dictator. Using democratic means is not as instant as they expect and I am sure that they have to budget for a long haul but what they must never do is to give up on the struggle.”
