(NEWZIMBABWE) Tsvangirai claims army coup warning

COMMENT - Desperation. The MDC is a failed regime change party. This is pure sedition by a foreign funded and direct organisation called the Movement for Democratic Change.

Tsvangirai claims army coup warning
Coup fears ... Morgan Tsvangirai claims military top brass will only accept a Robert Mugabe win
08/03/2012 00:00:00
by Gilbert Nyambabvu

SECURITY services chiefs will stage a coup if President Robert Mugabe does not win elections likely to be held this year, MDC-T leader and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has claimed.

Setting his party’s “minimum conditions” for free and fair elections in Harare on Thursday, Tsvangirai said military chiefs had told him that he would not take over from Mugabe even if he wins the next elections.

“We have instead been told by a few individuals at the helm of these sectors that anyone other than President Mugabe, even if they win an election, will not be able to take up their mandate,” the MDC-T leader said.

“They have even gone further to dismiss the significance of an electoral process by saying that they will not tolerate a new regime in Harare ushered in through the ballot because President Mugabe cannot be removed by a ‘mere pen which costs less than five cents’.”

Mugabe is demanding fresh polls this year to replace the coalition government which he formed with MDC rivals, claiming the arrangement was no longer workable.

But Tsvangirai – who won the first round of the Presidential ballot in 2008 beforer pulling out of a run-off citing violent attacks on his supporters – insists reforms agreed under the coalition agreement must be fully implemented to ensure a free and fair poll.
On Thursday, he said the threat by pro-Mugabe service chiefs made implementation of such reforms even more urgent.

“The security of the person (who wins the elections), the security of the vote and the security of the people needs to be guaranteed before we even start to cast our ballots,” he said.

The MDC-T leader said he was encouraged by the tacit SADC backing of his position: “We are heartened that the SADC region continues to restate the importance of key reforms ahead of the conduct of the next polls.”

South Africa President Jacob Zuma is mediating the Zimbabwe crisis on behalf of SADC. On Monday his Foreign Affairs minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane dismissed Mugabe’s threat to call elections without political reforms, drawing fire from Zanu PF officials who accused her of interfering in Zimbabwe’s internal affairs.

Mugabe – who turned 88 this year – accuses his rivals of frustrating constitutional reforms in a bid to delay elections. They fear defeat, he maintains.

But Tsvangirai said he would not take part in an election that was certain to end in “blood-bath”.

“We are not afraid of an election but we will definitely not participate in a war,” he said.

“The way forward for Zimbabwe remains a free and fair election… Anything else would be a circus.

“A circus or a bloodbath masquerading as an election would be a mockery and an insult to South Africa, SADC and the AU who have all been painstakingly working for the past four years to ensure that we hold a credible poll and set the foundation for a prosperous Zimbabwe.”