US embassy cable - 05HARARE1421

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 HARARE 001421 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DAS T. WOODS 
AF/S FOR B. NEULING 
NSC FOR SENIOR AFRICA DIRECTOR C. COURVILLE 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/18/2015 
TAGS: PGOV, PHUM, PREL, ZI, MDC 
SUBJECT: TSVANGIRAI ON SENATE ELECTIONS; MDC DIVISIONS 
 
Classified By: Ambassador Christopher Dell for reasons 1.5 b/d 
 
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Summary 
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1.  (C) MDC President Morgan Tsvangirai on October 18 told 
the Ambassador that there was division within the MDC over 
participation in Senate elections but no split of the party. 
The party leadership was effectively divided in half, but the 
party,s supporters strongly favored his position in favor of 
non-participation.  Tsvangirai expected that position to 
ultimately prevail and vowed to lead a strong boycott 
campaign.  The Ambassador noted that this was an opportunity 
for the MDC to put months of indecision behind them and take 
the offensive by campaigning for an electoral boycott. 
Tsvangirai agreed that it was a critical moment in the 
 
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party,s history.  End Summary. 
 
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Deep Divisions Over Senate 
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2. (C) Tsvangirai told the Ambassador that ever since the 
formation of the Senate had been announced there had been 
division within the MDC about how to respond.  Those in favor 
of non-participation, including Tsvangirai himself, had 
argued that the Senate was part of Mugabe,s agenda and that 
participation would only legitimize a powerless institution 
designed to solve internal ZANU-PF problems.  Moreover, not 
only would the institution do nothing to solve the country,s 
problems and help its increasingly poor and desperate people, 
it would in fact make things worse by siphoning off scarce 
resources to elect and support a new bureaucracy.  Those in 
favor of participation had argued that the MDC should not 
concede electoral space to ZANU-PF without a fight and that 
the party was and should be committed to contesting 
elections. 
 
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All Hell Breaks Loose 
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3. (C) Tsvangirai said the party had decided to resolve the 
impasse by having its provincial party structures sound out 
the party faithful on their preferences.  The response of the 
people was overwhelming opposition to participation, save for 
in Bulawayo and Matabeleland.  However, not all the 
provincial party structures had carried out their 
instructions or faithfully reported the results.  When the 
party,s Executive Council had met last week the vote had 
been six province in favor of participation and six against. 
Those in favor of participation then forced a vote of the 
Executive Council, which by a bare majority (33 to 31) had 
voted in favor of participation. 
 
4. (C) Tsvangirai said at that point he had intervened and 
made a statement that the party,s leadership was closely 
divided but that the people were opposed to participation and 
that therefore his decision was that the party would not 
participate.  At that moment &all hell broke loose,8 and 
his opponents subsequently accused him of anti-democratic 
behavior and of ignoring the will of the majority.  In fact, 
they were the ones who had behaved anti-democratically by 
ignoring the sentiment of the people out of their desire to 
be elected and enjoy the perks of being Senators.  Moreover, 
he had heard reports that several Council members had been 
bribed to vote in favor of participation, and he suspected 
the CIO was responsible, both because the government wanted 
MDC participation and wanted to sow confusion within the 
party. 
 
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Next Steps 
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5. (C) Tsvangirai said both sides had argued with great 
passion but that while the party was clearly divided it was 
not splitting.  Both sides were committed to staying together 
despite the strong feelings.  More worrisome was the 
perception that the party was divided along ethnic lines. 
This was a false impression.  The issue was a national one 
not regional or ethnic, but that perception could do the 
party great damage.  To that end his plan was to reconvene 
the Executive Council next week t agree on a way forward ) 
not to revisit participation ) but to discuss a boycott and 
other protest measures. 
 
6. (C) The Ambassador responded that his impression was also 
that most MDC supporters supported non-participation and that 
Tsvangirai,s position was therefore the more democratic. 
 
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With that in mind, this crisis represented an opportunity for 
Tsvangirai to reassert his leadership of the people both in 
 
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the party and in the country.  It also represented an 
opportunity to turn the tables on Mugabe and ZANU-PF, which 
had put the MDC on the defensive over the past six months 
through their efforts to divide the party.  A successful 
boycott of the election would undermine the Senate,s 
legitimacy, demonstrate the ruling party,s unpopularity, and 
prove that Tsvangirai was in closer touch with the people of 
Zimbabwe than either his MDC rivals or his ZANU-PF opponents. 
 This approach was not without risk.  There was a chance that 
a portion of the MDC might choose to break away but it could 
still prove to be the right way to reenergize opposition to 
the Mugabe regime.  Tsvangirai agreed, noting that the party 
had already begun to recapture the fighting spirit of 1999 in 
anticipation of a boycott campaign. 
 
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Comment 
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7. (C) The MDC is clearly at a crossroads.  The Senate 
elections have helped expose the fundamental disagreement 
between Tsvangirai and his supporters, who see the MDC as a 
revolutionary movement and Secretary General Welshman Ncube 
and his supporters, who see it as a political party operating 
within the confines of the current system.  Ncube is 
committed to gradual change from within the system, 
contesting every election and exerting whatever influence the 
MDC has to moderate government policies.  Tsvangirai wants to 
overthrow the system a ruthless and corrupt dictatorship. 
 
8. (C) More worrisome is that there is increasingly bad blood 
on both sides as they accuse each other of bribery and impugn 
each other,s motives.  That said, Tsvangirai is the heart 
and soul of the MDC and without him the party would likely 
not exist.  Ncube knows this and also knows that as an ethnic 
Ndebele he has no prospect of winning power in his own right. 
 We believe the MDC will find a way to bridge its differences 
and we believe that successful boycott of the Senate 
elections would be the right way to do so.  A low turnout 
would put the government on the defensive and would be far 
easier for the MDC and the international community to monitor 
and verify. 
DELL