US embassy cable - 05HARARE508

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 HARARE 000508 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR AF/DAS WOODS; OVP FOR NULAND;AS WOODS; AF/S BRUCE NEULING 
NSC PLS PASS TO SENIOR AFRICA DIRECTOR C. COURVILLE 
DEPARTMENT PASS EU MEMBER STATES COLLECTIVE 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/31/2015 
TAGS: PGOV, PHUM, PREL, ZI, March 05 Elections, MDC 
SUBJECT: TSVANGIRAI BOUNCING BACK: DETAILS FRAUD AND NEXT 
MDC STEPS 
 
REF: HARARE 502 AND PREVIOUS 
 
Classified By: AMBASSADOR CHRISTOPHER W. DELL, REASON 1.4 b/d 
 
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Summary 
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1. (C) A more upbeat MDC Head Morgan Tsvangirai told the 
Ambassador late Saturday night that his contacts inside the 
CIO had told him the MDC had won over 90 seats in the March 
31 Parliamentary elections.  Tsvangirai said his next step 
was to go after the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) and 
force them to explain large discrepancies in the total 
number of votes cast and the official results.  The MDC 
would not, however, boycott Parliament.  He told a broader 
group of Ambassadors the same thing Sunday morning 
(omitting any mention of the CIO), but added that anger was 
building and after five years he was not sure the MDC could 
prevent people taking to the streets.  This, however, was 
what Mugabe wanted - a pretext to crush the opposition.  He 
added that South Africa had played a "dishonest" role and 
that the MDC would write them off.  The Ambassadors 
stressed that African criticism would strengthen that of 
Western countries and several suggested he look to the AU. 
The Ambassador added that in any event, the degree of fraud 
was such that it was hard to imagine any serious outside 
observer arguing for "normalizing" relations with Zimbabwe, 
for example by removing sanctions and resuming IFI 
lending.  End Summary. 
 
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Private Meeting with Ambassador Dell 
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2. (C) Tsvangirai said he was calling in all MDC candidates 
and asking them to analyze the official results and compare 
them to MDC and Zimbabwe Electoral Support Systems (ZESN) 
data to highlight the extent of the fraud.  He said a 
preliminary study of the results had found there were 32 
(rising to 35 by Sunday) constituencies where difference 
between the total number of votes cast as announced by ZEC 
at 2 a.m. Friday morning and those ultimately certified by 
ZEC later in the morning was enough to change the outcome. 
He highlighted the Beitbridge constituency as an example, 
where ZEC had initially reported 32,000 voters but only 
20,000 were ultimately recorded in the official results. 
Tsvangirai claimed his contacts in the Central Intelligence 
 
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Organization (CIO) had told him that according to their 
information the MDC had in fact actually won over 90 
seats. 
 
3. (C) Tsvangirai said MDC was considering its options in 
responding to the fraud but would in any event pursue a 
legal challenge to the results through the electoral 
courts.  The goal would be to force ZEC officials to 
explain these discrepancies, which they had so far failed 
to do.  He said at this stage the MDC had ruled out a 
boycott of parliament, which ZANU-PF would simply pocket. 
The MDC would accept what it had won and challenge what it 
had lost.  Tsvangirai said anger was building but that the 
MDC and its partners could not as yet generate the kind of 
numbers for street protests that would be needed to face 
down the military.  He said Mugabe would be waiting for 
just such an opportunity to crush the MDC and would "come 
on heavy" if the MDC took to the streets.  He said the 
party was considering organizing a stay-away.  He 
acknowledged problems with some in civil society but said 
they were being resolved and that labor and the churches 
were supportive. 
 
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Broader Diplomatic Meeting 
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4. (C) In a Sunday morning meeting with the Ambassador and 
a selection of other, largely European Ambassadors, 
Tsvangirai reiterated that the election had been stolen and 
 
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that the MDC had actually won over 90 seats (he did not 
note that this information came from the CIO).  So far 
irregularities had been reported in the results for 35 
constituencies.  Tsvangirai acknowledged that the MDC had 
been slow to react to the fraud, but said the MDC would be 
issuing a statement saying they could not possibly accept 
the result of the elections.  As he had previously told the 
Ambassador, his party intended to challenge the ZEC to 
defend the announced result totals before the newly 
established electoral court but would not pursue a strategy 
of challenging individual constituency results. 
 
5. (C) Tsvangirai criticized the "cosmetic" changes to the 
electoral environment, which he said had not addressed the 
fundamental lack of a democratic environment in Zimbabwe. 
The delimitation exercise had been the most serious 
problem, followed by the lack of a truly independent (and 
empowered) independent electoral commission and a voters 
roll which he characterized as a "shambles."  He also noted 
the use of the security forces to run the electoral 
process, use of traditional leaders to coerce rural voters 
to support ZANU-PF, and said that the people in 
resettlement areas were in fact "captive constituencies" 
(literally) for ZANU-PF.  The MDC leader added that the ZEC 
had not really been in charge of any aspect of the process, 
which had in fact been run by the ZANU-PR bureaucracy. 
 
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Next Steps 
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6. (C) Tsvangarai said the Zimbabwean people were 
disappointed with the result since they knew how they had 
voted.  However, he was urging them to stay the course and 
fight on.  "Democracy is not an event, it's a process," he 
said.    He said that after reviewing its options the party 
had decided to reject the results of the election and to 
carry on with its democratic struggle.  He repeated what he 
had told the Ambassador that the MDC would not boycott 
Parliament.  He called Mugabe a "stumbling block" to every 
effort to affect democratic change in Zimbabwe and said 
that Mugabe was hoping people would take to the streets so 
he could crush them ruthlessly and eliminate the democratic 
threat to his grip on power.  For five years MDC had 
avoided the path of violence, but he was uncertain whether 
he could control the people's emotions anymore. 
 
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South Africa's Role; International Response 
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7. (C) Turning to the role of Zimbabwe's neighbors, 
Tsvangarai described South African president Mbeki as a 
 
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"dishonest broker" in view of the whitewash of this process 
offered by the South African and SADC observer missions. 
He said that as a matter of principal South Africa was 
complicit in the electoral fraud in Zimbabwe and had gone 
"all out" to justify the end result "without scruples."  He 
said that in view of this complicity, henceforth the MDC 
would reject any role for South Africa in any potential 
dialogue between MDC and ZANU-PF.  On the question of 
future dialogue with the GOZ and ZANU-PF, Tsvangarai said 
the MDC would only agree to discuss a new constitution 
after the "fundamentals," including the recent electoral 
fraud, had been addressed. 
 
8. (C) In the ensuing discussion several of the diplomats 
present stressed that the ability of the West to criticize 
the elections would be lent additional credibility if 
African voices were also heard.  Tsvangarai and MDC 
Secretary General Welshman Ncube both said that while they 
 
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planned making a round robin visit to African capitals in 
the coming weeks, they had little faith that any African 
government would dare speak out.  They were thus trying to 
get independent voices from African civil society, churches 
and trade union movements to offer public criticisms.  The 
British Ambassador stressed that the leader of the AU 
observer team was a Ghanian official who was independent, 
courageous and concerned to protect his reputation.  He 
urged the MDC not to give up on the AU.  (N.B. In fact, the 
AU team followed us into Tsvangarai's residence). 
 
9. (C) The Ambassador made the point that our ability to 
increase pressure on Mugabe had been helped considerably by 
the degree and extent of the latter's manipulation of the 
vote tabulation.  No serious international observer could 
now credibly assert that this was a legitimate process and 
that therefore the time had come to drop sanctions on 
Zimbabwe and "normalize" relations.  Saying that he was 
speaking personally and not on instructions, the Ambassador 
said he found it hard to imagine, for example, that 
Washington would even consider supporting IMF balance of 
payment support to the Mugabe regime in light of this 
patent fraud and anti-democratic behavior.  Mugabe's 
behavior also portrayed the attitude of a despot who ruled 
from a narrow base, relying on the security services and 
absolute control over all political processes to maintain 
his hold on power, and was not the attitude of a 
fundamentally confident democratic leader. 
 
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Comment 
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10. (C) Two things are clear from the aftermath of this 
election.  One is that Robert Mugabe will do whatever it 
takes to fulfill his wishes and will only address the 
consequences afterwards.  We underestimated the extent to 
which he would go in securing a two-thirds majority so that 
he can dictate his country's future, believing that 
Zimbabwe's need for assistance: food and fuel, would force 
hi to moderate his aims.  As long as Mugabe is in charge, 
ZANU-PF is incapable of embracing reform and 
democratization in Zimbabwe, no matter how modest.  The 
second thing that is clear is that Thabo Mbeki has lost the 
MDC's confidence completely and cannot now play a 
constructive role because of his perceived bias and " 
complicity" in favor of one of the parties in the dispute. 
We will have to look elsewhere for an African voice that 
will speak for the disenfranchised people of Zimbabwe. 
 
11. (C) As to Tsvangirai, anger at the MDC's failure to 
anticipate the opaque tabulation process and be ready with 
counter measures is growing, especially following his 
vacillating press conference performance on Friday 
morning.  That said, he is probably right that mass action 
would not succeed without a lot of preparation and it says 
something for his inherent decency that he was not willing 
to risk people's lives -- it would be hard to see Mugabe 
making a similar call.  It was good to see Tsvangirai 
upbeat and preparing himself for the struggle ahead, which 
he knew all along -- as did we -- was going to be long and 
difficult regardless of the election's results. 
Dell