The opposition Movement for Democratic Change is caught in a catch-22 situation in deciding whether to participate in Zimbabwe’s upcoming general elections, party leader Morgan Tsvangirai said in Johannesburg on Tuesday.
”We are damned if we do, and damned if we don’t,” he told participants at a seminar on opposition parties and democracy in Africa.
Tsvangirai said if the MDC participated in an electoral process in which the Zimbabwe people had lost confidence, it would legitimise the election.
If it refused to take part, it risks becoming irrelevant as the only opposition political party to the ruling Zanu-PF.
Tsvangirai listed various factors contributing to the current political environment which precluded free and fair elections.
He said the recently created Independent Electoral Commission would not have time to become independent by the March election. The MDC was also unable to campaign freely as it had to get permission from the country’s Police Commission to hold a meeting of more than three people.
Tsvangirai said 50 000 militia belong to Zanu-PF had been specially trained to coerce and intimidate opposition members and also hindered free elections. The MDC was also being denied access to the voters’ roll.
”How can we trust it [the voters’ roll] if 40% of the voters do not exist.”
Tsavangirai said the MDC would decide whether to contest the election at their national council meeting on February 1 and 2.
”Democracy is not an event such as a single election, it is a process,” he said.
”We don’t need election observers … I call them election tourists.
”We need monitors now to assess the situation in the country and especially in the rural areas. We don’t need those that come on election day and sniff around and then draw their conclusions.”
The conference was held at the University of the Witwatersrand and was attended by, among others, Independent Democrats leader Patricia De Lille and politicians from Côte d’Ivoire. The conference was chaired by Moeletsi Mbeki from the South African Institute of International Affairs. He is also President Thabo Mbeki’s brother.
In his address to the conference, Tsvangirai reminisced about the independence of Zimbabwe in 1980.
”We celebrated with boundless excitement. Independence marked the end of an era of colonial rule. Independence marked a new beginning.”
He said the independent government merely replaced colonial rule and that the Zimbabwean Constitution had been drafted by the British.
”The people had no input into this independence document. The so-called Constitution was a mere compromise document, totally unconcerned about the path to freedom and to real democracy.”
”Twenty-five years down the line, that document is still the supreme law of our land.”
”The new system [the government after independence] merely replaced the colonial administrator and adopted an agenda that was at variance with the expectations and aspirations of the people,” Tsvangirai said.
”Almost a quarter of century after independence, Zimbabweans are as poor as they were in 1970, fewer people have formal sector jobs than in 1980 and life expectancy is lower than in 1960.”
”On the one occasion we were granted an audience with Mugabe, he informed us to go and form our own political party if we were serious about achieving our objectives. Well, on 11 September 1999 we did just that [and formed the MDC]”.
”The founding objective of the movement was to take over power through democratic means.”
Before leading Zimbabwe’s opposition, Tsvangirai had a career in the trade unions and was elected secretary general of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions.
He also was an official in Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party.
Tsvangirai has been brutally assaulted and been charged with treason three times. – Sapa, Staff Reporter