TSVANGIRAI BOUNCING BACK: DETAILS FRAUD AND NEXT

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 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

SIPDIS
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