(HERALD) Jendayi’s safari exposes Western hypocrisy
Jendayi’s safari exposes Western hypocrisyBy Stephen T. Maimbodei
WHEN the Zimbabwe Election Support Network released their "projected" 2008 presidential result, little did they know the impact they would have on Zimbabwe’s bumpy political terrain.
For purposes of discussion, the ZESN figures will be reproduced in this analysis:
Candidate Projected vote Error margin
Makoni, Herbert Stanley Simba 8,2 1,1
Mugabe, Robert Gabriel 41,8 2,6
Towungana, Langton 0,6 0,
Tsvangirai, Morgan 49,4 2,4
On April 2, the MDC-T secretary-general, Tendai Biti, shocked the world when he announced what they called their own set of presidential results, which they claimed were based on ZESN’s figures.
However, upon close scrutiny, the MDC-T and ZESN figures do not tally.
The MDC-T results also posted on their website claim that Tsvangirai got 1 169 860 votes, while President Mugabe received 1 043 451 votes, and Simba Makoni 169 636 votes. The MDC-T concluded that Tsvangirai’s vote translated to 50,3 percent of the total presidential vote cast, and thus according to their claims, he had "won the election with no need for a run-off".
Biti told the media that the results they had released had been "confirmed by the figures pasted outside the polling stations in accordance with the law".
On the same day an international radio station interviewed Biti, and he claimed that the results they were announcing were based on projected figures that had been released by ZESN, with a margin of error of 2,4 percent.
On April 5, Tsvangirai claimed that a run-off was unnecessary because with his "50,3 percent", he had won the presidential poll outright.
Then on Thursday, April 24 US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer at a Press conference in Cape Town, made the situation no better when she claimed the MDC-T leader was the "outright" winner in Zimbabwe’s March 29 presidential poll, and there would be no need for a run-off.
Frazer said the US saw no basis for the MDC to participate in the anticipated run-off. She also pointed out that the US would ensure that the MDC-T leader would not participate in such an exercise.
She said according to the figures they had, Tsvangirai had won the poll by 49,4 percent while President Mugabe had polled 41,8 percent. She also claimed that that the result she was announcing was based on ZESN’s figures, with a margin of error of 2,4 percent.
The usual blunt Zimbabwean humour has not been in short supply as you hear people saying "kana zvadai, maresults aakuwanikwa pablack market". (If this is the case the election results can only now be found on the parallel market).
Meaning that while ZEC still has to officially release the presidential result in accordance with Zimbabwe’s electoral laws, there have been various results, which in keeping with the blunt humour can only be concluded as coming from the parallel market, where they change so constantly depending on the highest bidder.
In fact, some of the claims in the international media have reduced the Zimbabwean presidential poll to a media circus, for while they gripe about ZEC’s delay in announcing the result, they cannot hide their delight that the MDC-T has a majority in the House of Assembly.
Jendayi is no newcomer to controversial electoral issues in Africa. In a space of four months she is proving the old adage that the devil has gotten into the detail.
Last December, she did it in Kenya, and now she is doing it in Zimbabwe, despite assurances by ZEC chairman Justice George Chiweshe that all electoral results are on the way.
The outside world remembers that it was the US government through their top African diplomatic official Frazer who were the first to congratulate Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki as the winner, after the controversial December 27 2007 election, only to have the State Department backtrack from her statement a few days later.
According to media reports, "in an unusual move, the State Department deputy spokesperson Tom Casey distanced himself from a comment from a State Department official who told reporters the United States accepted the announced results and congratulated Mr Kibaki".
Back to the ZESN "projected results". The bottom line now is that the MDC-T and their international sympathisers are willfully forgetting to mention these very critical words: "projected results".
In the English language, "projected" means, on the drawing board; intended; planned and contrived.
Which goes to show that until ZEC, the body mandated by the Zimbabwean Constitution to run elections and referendums in Zimbabwe, officially announces the electoral results, all figures being touted around and endorsed by Uncle Sam and its allies are nothing but "projected figures".
This writer is no statistician. However, it is interesting to note that ZESN’s margin of error on Tsvangirai’s projected result is the one being cited in order to validate the claims that he is an "outright" winner.
Lest we forget, there is one document, which Americans from time immemorial think is sacrosanct, and therefore should never be tampered with irrespective of which political party or national interests are at stake.
That document is their constitution. In 2000 when George W. Bush and Al Gore were fighting for the soul of Florida, most analysts argued that it was actually the American constitution that was under trial.
Calls were made to amend it, but the American public stood their ground and objected. But it was the interpretation of that same document that saw Bush "win" the presidency.
It is therefore surprising that while Jendayi would want to see their constitution followed to the letter, the same should not be for Zimbabwe.
For not only are the Americans, British and the EU endorsing ZESN’s and the MDC-T’s "projected figures", but Jendayi, by declaring that Tsvangirai was the "outright" winner, and that there would be no need for a run-off, she disregarded Zimbabwe’s Constitution which states that:
In terms of Section 110(3) of the Electoral Act, which was amended in December 2007,
"Where two or more candidates for President are nominated, and after a poll taken in terms of subsection (2) no candidate receives a majority of the total number of valid votes cast, a second election shall be held within twenty-one days after the previous election in accordance with this Act."
The clamour to declare the presidential result based on a study is not only unethical and unprofessional, but it is very worrying, and also setting a very dangerous precedent.
If opinion polls were outright pointers to real situations on the ground, why is the MDC-T also not basing their claims on the study carried out by the Mass Public Opinion Poll?
And, do they ever ask themselves that despite the demonisation about the announcement of the election results, Zanu-PF has not used the much-publicised projected figures from a study carried out by Joseph Kurebwa of the University of Zimbabwe, which gave them an outright majority of 56-57 percent?
The Western diplomatic offensive is nothing new, but right now they are upping their stakes since Britain will be taking over the chairmanship of the UN Security Council from South Africa soon.
Frazer’s African safari was nothing but a mission to call on Africa to support their illegal economic sanctions against Zimbabwe, a view that is strongly backed by Gordon Brown.
Brown is currently using Zimbabwe in attempts to divert attention from his unpopularity at home, which had to be defended at the weekend by his foreign minister David Miliband.
What is also surprising in the current US posturing on Zimbabwe is that this is the same US government that has been accommodating presidential re-runs in many parts of the world, including Liberia where soccer star George Weah had claimed that there was no need for a re-run since he had won the election first time.
However, because the US had their preferred candidate, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Liberia ended up having a run-off.
Why are the MDC-T and their backers also trying to jump the gun when they know that there is that fine print in Zimbabwe’s electoral law? Why are they not prepared to go through the due process that the rule of law requires? Why refuse to be fully tested, if at first it did not succeed?
As Jendayi kept on saying "we, we", "Obviously we will not allow the MDC", it struck this writer that these are the very statements that Zimbabweans should hear so that they know that although they voted with their stomachs, the MDC are organised, controlled and manipulated in London and Washington. Any listener with a discerning mind about the future of this nation would surely be very worried.
Thanks to one such Zimbabwean citizen with an eagle’s eye view, who saw everything wrong in the number crunching done by both the MDC-T and now the Americans, for he pointed out in The Herald of April 22 that if anyone computed percentages for each candidate based on MDC-T’s figures, it was clear that Tsvangirai would have 49,1 percent, and not the 50,3 percent they are claiming, which would mean, a run-off, according to Zimbabwe’s laws.
Jendayi’s African safari was not only meant to arm-twist ZEC to prematurely release the presidential result, but it was also meant to endorse the result that the MDC-T had force-fed the international community.
Her visit was also meant to drum up support for the opposition by trying to get Sadc to isolate President Mugabe.
For Jendayi’s next port of call was Lusaka where she met Zambian leader, and current Sadc chairman Levy Mwanawasa, and from where she called for sanctions against Zimbabwe and also added: "Zimbabwe must be put on the United Nations Security Council agenda to discuss the rising level of human rights abuses and torture . . . Washington will do everything in its power to ensure that Zimbabwe is hauled before the United Nations Security Council . . .We have a responsibility as the Security Council to address these issues."
If Americans understood the issues on the ground in Zimbabwe, maybe they would answer this critical question: How many times should sanctions be imposed on Zimbabwe? So, they mean to tell us that there is more hell that they can unleash on the Zimbabwean people, over and above what their Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act of 2001 is currently doing?
True to her controversial nature, Jendayi saw that the only way to win this diplomatic battle was through the carrot and stick method and by intimidating Zimbabwe’s regional neighbours, a price that some think might be too high to pay, judging by the events of the past weeks.
For, Jendayi told university students in Johannesburg that "the fact that countries in the region are not speaking out about repression in Zimbabwe made it difficult for supporters of Africa in the American government to argue the case for more aid".
This is a threat that cannot easily be brushed aside at a time escalating food and fuel prices are making headlines especially in poor nations, Africa in particular.
Those that hold both the pursestrings and the keys to the grain silos are bound to use food as a political weapon to make those who do not want to be part of the circle of freedom join them, because they are hungry.
Brown is also a happy man. A week ago, speaking shortly before meeting ANC president Jacob Zuma, Brown said Britain would press for an international arms embargo against Zimbabwe to stop a Chinese shipment of weapons from reaching Zimbabwe.
He argued that the delay in releasing the Zimbabwe presidential election results was unacceptable. In a statement, on April 26, Brown said the coming days would be "critical" to resolving the situation in Zimbabwe.
This is the same Brown who in 2000 was Chancellor of the Exchequer, and whose government kept mum when the American presidential results were delayed, and the American electoral process was mired in controversy.
It was as though Uncle Sam’s muscle gave fires of fury to the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu and retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu, both of whom were initially masked under the "international church" condemning the Government of Zimbabwe, when, in fact, they are "spokespersons" of the Church of England which has immense vested interests in Zimbabwe.
Sentamu’s calls for prayer and fasting for Zimbabweans missed out what the Lord Jesus said when he spoke about fasting in the book of Matthew 6: 16-18, and also the admonitions made about fasting in the book of Isaiah 58. That the US chose to make their utterances about Zimbabwe’s elections in South Africa is not only poignant, but it is also symbolic since it revealed their double standards when it comes to Africa’s history: past, present and future.
The level of hypocrisy as they postured about Zimbabwean issue, should have made the likes of Condoleezza Rice who has called Zimbabwe an "outpost of tyranny" and Jendayi discomfited, for as early as April 10 2008, there were reports that there are still laws in place in the US to "keep America safe from Nelson Mandela" and his other comrades-in-arms in the ANC.
Below are sample headlines that accompanied the story of an issue embedded not only in racial connotations, but with implications that all fighters for liberation in Southern Africa are still regarded terrorists: "US shamed by Mandela terror link"; "Nelson Mandela still a terrorist"; "Long overdue: clearing Nelson Mandela’s record", etc.
Wrote the BBC on April 10, "US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has asked for ‘embarrassing’ travel restrictions on Nelson Mandela and South African leaders to be lifted", "A Bill has been introduced in the US Congress to remove from databases any reference to South Africa’s governing party and its leaders as terrorists. At present a waiver is needed for any ANC leaders to enter the country".
Rice told lawmakers in Washington, "it is frankly a rather embarrassing matter that I still have to waive in my own counterparts — the foreign minister of South Africa, not to mention the great leader, Nelson Mandela". And, Howard Berman, chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, who introduced the Bill, said it was "shameful" that the United States still treated the ANC this way.
"Amazingly, Nelson Mandela still needs to get a special waiver to enter the United States based on his courageous leadership of the ANC. What an indignity! This legislation will wipe it away," he said.
Mandela and his colleagues in the ANC were banned by South Africa’s apartheid regime in 1960, and Mandela was released from Robben Island in 1990.
The question that begs an answer is, how did Mandela and company end up on the US list of terrorists in the post 9/11 war on terror era?
The West, especially the US, has canonised Mandela in its media and the very system that he was incarcerated by has been falling all over each other turning his struggle against the brutal apartheid system into a pop culture event, while all along, they have been mortifying and denigrating him.
All the "who is who" in the US wants an association of some sort with Mandela.
But was it an oversight that this regulation was still in place since 1990? For Mandela had all along been on the list of banned travellers to the US, and each time he and other ANC members wanted to visit the US, the law had to be jinxed. He remained on a list of terrorists, equally banned, just like President Mugabe and his Zanu-PF compatriots.
For President Mugabe, at least ZDERA was there to make them know. But how about Mandela?
And, are we also not aware that people who are termed terrorists can end up on the infamous torture prison camp, Guantanamo Bay, and that though faceless and nameless, they have been the subject of the much talked about rendition programme.
So, why this moral high ground when all we know is that Mandela is an image that gives succour to the capitalist system? Who really is fooling who in this game?
Is this how best we can differentiate between travel bans and sanctions, for Mandela and his colleagues have been on the US travel ban, but no sanctions were imposed on the South African people?
It is not difficult to see and conclude that the posturing and onslaught against the Government of President Mugabe and Zanu-PF by the Britain and her allies is now driven by one major desire: To see Zimbabwe discussed by the United Nations.
And the diplomatic onslaught that we have seen in the past few weeks only goes to confirm that the likes of Frazer are foot soldiers who never uttered a word when land apportionment was skewed in favour of a few white individuals, but were so blind to see that Mandela was on their government’s travel ban list.
Jendayi should also know that we know who the West is speaking about when they say the suffering people of Zimbabwe. It is the former white commercial farmers whose land was repossessed by the Government and distributed to the people.
Maybe Jendayi should read Chris McGreal’s article in the London Times of April 13 2008 entitled "There are many villains to blame for Zimbabwe’s decade of horror".
Contrary to popular notion among the majority in the MDC, the whites in this country only got interested in local politics when they started feeling the economic pinch.
Writes McGreal, "A man called ‘Monty’ Montgomery was heading the MDC’s campaign in the Hurungwe and Kariba regions in the 2000 election . . . Montgomery was conscripted into the Rhodesian police and rose to become an officer in the notorious special branch responsible for the interrogation of political prisoners and ‘terrorists’ --- men like Mugabe.
"By the time I met him, Montgomery was running an agricultural supply business that had fallen on hard times. He had not taken much interest in democracy until his pocket was hit, but talking to him, and to other older whites, there was a sense that this was payback time, an opportunity to ‘get’ Mugabe.
Thus the hue and cry about the March 29 poll results which we are also waiting for is also one of the most deceitful attitudes to come out of the Western world.
The Herald analysts have reminded their many readers, that irrespective of the US’s economic and military might, it has no moral high ground to lecture Zimbabwe on electoral procedures.
Not only did they take so long in announcing election results in 2000, but it was a result that was finally decided on by a partisan judiciary system.
It was also an election that exposed a number of flaws in the US electoral system, an election that affirmed that nothing in this world even written on stone and in blood is perfect and sacrosanct. This is why the developing world has always called on practising home grown, as opposed to imported democratic principles.
For now the terrain looks so bumpy and dangerous. For now also, it also looks like being a lone voice in ascertaining one’s sovereignty in a globalised and interconnected village is sheer madness and looks like one is moving against the tide. But only tome will tell.
No one can hasten the season and process except Zimbabweans.
posted by MrK @ 10:11 PM
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