MAURITIUS SENDING 20 OBSERVERS TO ZIMBABWE

C O N F I D E N T I A L PORT LOUIS 000207 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/15/2018 TAGS: PHUM PGOV PREL ZI MP SUBJECT: MAURITIUS SENDING 20 OBSERVERS TO ZIMBABWE REF: A. PORT LOUIS 189 ¶B. ANTANANARIVO 417 Classified By: Deputy Chief of Mission Virginia Blaser for reasons 1.4 b and d. ¶1. (C) SUMMARY. The Government of Mauritius has agreed to send fifteen additional election observers for the June 27 presidential run-off election in Zimbabwe. This moves their election observer numbers up from five to 20. The observers will arrive in two to three tranches beginning immediately, and the Mauritian Electoral Commissioner will head the Mauritian delegation. The GOM was clearly swayed by the Malagasy contribution as reported in reftel B. END SUMMARY. ¶2. (C) On Monday, June 2, Ambassador Cabrera called on Prime Minister Navinchandra Ramgoolam (reftel A) to discuss a wide variety of issues, including GOM presence at the upcoming presidential runoff elections in Zimbabwe. During this meeting, the PM said that Mauritius would be sending a "much larger" delegation to the runoffs than had been sent for the March elections. Subsequent to this meeting, Post learned from a variety of contacts that the GOM's increases (from one observer to five) were more modest than implied by the Prime Minister. ¶3. (C) DCM then contacted a number of high-ranking MFA and government leaders to lobby the GOM to further increase the number of Mauritian election observers. Reftel B was particularly helpful in this regard, and allowed for additional pressure to be placed on key contacts. Of note, Ambassador Patrice Cure and the Electoral Commissioner were particularly supportive of the increase in observers, with Cure himself volunteering to make up part of the team. According to a number of Embassy contacts, the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Anand Neewoor, however, did not support an increase and actively rejected requests by others to lobby the Prime Minister in a positive fashion. ¶4. (C) In order to minimize Neewoor's influence on the decision, on Friday, 13 June, DCM contacted Prime Minister Ramgoolam's Private Secretary (who was accompanying the Prime Minister during his official visit to France) to ask her to brief the PM directly and request a quick response. The PS told the DCM that the PM was in favor of further increasing the numbers and that he would delegate the final number decision to Deputy Prime Minister Ahmed Beebeejaun, who was Acting PM in Ramgoolam's absence. Ambassador Cabrera called Deputy Prime Minister Beebeejaun to urge Mauritius to increase their observer numbers, and obtained Beebeejaun's commitment of 20 observers. ¶5. (C) COMMENT. Post recommends reinforcing this development with a senior-level USG call to the PM to give our thanks for his quick support. The Prime Minister returned from France on Sunday, 15 June, and Post will send to AF/E via email possibile PM availability for a quick call. END COMMENT. CABRERA