via How the West helped Mugabe to win the 2013 Zimbabwe elections by InsiderZim.com Tuesday, 10 September 2013
The West was shocked when Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front leader Robert Mugabe won the 2013 presidential and parliamentary elections securing a 61 percent poll while his party won a two-thirds majority in the lower house.
While the West has rejected the result, it unwittingly contributed to Mugabe’s victory.
The 2013 elections were a contest between liberalisation and indigenisation.
They pitted 61-year-old Movement for Democratic Change leader and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai against 89-year-old Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front leader and President Robert Mugabe who has been in power for the past 33 years.
Tsvangirai promised a new, young leadership, greater democracy and to transform the country, creating one million jobs in five years.
Mugabe promised to consolidate his fast track land reform programme under which some 245 000 people were resettled after initially invading white-owned farms and to indigenise the economy by giving locals a stake in the 1 138 foreign-owned companies in the country.
The West has been fighting for more than a decade to get Mugabe to retire and has been financing Tsvangirai. But this time, they did not provide enough funding to finance his campaign.
Though they wanted change, it appears the West believed that Zimbabweans would just reject Mugabe because he was too old, has been in power too long and was incapable of turning around the economy.
They also believed in the “black disaster” myth that surrounded the land reform programme unaware that it had become a huge success and people preferred farming to working for someone else.
They also ignored the paradigm shift that was brought about by hyperinflation. Most Zimbabweans now believe in working for themselves than in being employed because they realised that you could starve with a full-time job.
The demonization of Mugabe as a tyrannical dictator has backfired. People, across the region and the continent, now regard him as a hero because he is one of the few people that has stood up against the West which is bullying everyone across the globe.
Though polls by United States organisations like Freedom House indicated that Mugabe was gaining popularity, no one imagined the magnitude of this change in thinking.
The world was shocked when Mugabe won 61 percent of the vote in the 31 July elections. His party, which had 99 seats in 2008, shot up to 160 while Tsvangirai’s MDC dropped from 100 seats to 49.
Complacency by the West and perhaps a belief in their own propaganda helped Mugabe to pull off one of his biggest election victories- a victory that could convince him to retire- happy that he has delivered the land, the economy, and an overwhelming victory for his party that Tanzanian Foreign Minister Bernard Membe said could ensure that his party can rule for another 100 years unless the opposition changes tact.
This is the introduction of a 9 400 word (18-page) article on How the West helped Mugabe to win the 2013 Zimbabwe elections which is now available as a kindle book.
COMMENTS
While I don’t speak on behalf of the so-called West as depicted by the anonymous author of the 18 page book, I wouldn’t let it without comment. First and foremost, this was an election and how the West if we mean western countries got involved in the voting process, the rigging and counting of votes, only that mysterious authors knows better. Secondly, how people in Muzarabani, Tsholotsho, Mbare, Amaveni and Mucheke supposedly get instructions from the so-called on their voting choices, equally, the anonymous author seems very creative. Finally, we know very well how much Mr RG Mugabe paid Nikuv to get his landslide made in Israel because the bank statements are there as proof. Why bother sanitising tyranny and electoral fraud under the guise of bashing an imaginary WEST!
Surely this is what we call writing for the sake of writing something.In life there are some people who can not just keep quite. They will fantasize and unfortunately becuse they are a little bit educated they then put their fantasies on paper, these one would classify privilleged mad people. The West had nothing to do with the so called Mugabe ‘victory’ if at all it qualifies to be called ‘victory’ as many papers are putting it. This is not victory it is a shame but there is no shame on a wrinkled face it is cheating the same as we have seen Ben Johnson,Lance Armstrong and many others being dethroned of their falsely claimed drug aided ‘victories’ though in our situation it is a life threatening matter. The most shocking thing is most analysts tend to allude the ‘defeat’ to Tsvangirayi as a person while the actual ‘loser’here is all the Zimbabweans at large. Tarasikirwa veduwe sarin gas in Syria is much better it finishes with you on the spot and not this perpertual Mugabe thing it consumes the body and soul every minute every second.
Absolutely correct Clifford. The west was shut out from observing the election. So how can they be blamed? The author of this article lives in a dream world
It’s all a pipe dream. The winner of the election was not the one preferred by the people, but the one with the bigger wallet. Show us the diamond money!
you got the majority u got the fear tactics u got the experience and u got the eloquent speaking, mesmerising,magnetic personality so what did you expect?
Oh poor boys and girls you shall not get a slice of bread from the WORST anymore ah shame!
The writer sounds like those opportunists who always say “if you cant beat them join them”. Virtually all points showing rigging from the voters roll to many others have been ignored and rejected. One calls that a victory. Even quoting a member of the Chama Chamapinduzi Tanzanian ruling party is an insult to Zimbabwean people. This party, the ANC of South Africa, Swapo of Namibia, the MPLA of Angola and Zanupf held regular meetings as parties to support each other before elections in Zimbabwe. When they declare Mugabe a winner one calls that a resounding victory. NO! The MDCs and other parties in Zimbabwe were naive if they believed that SADC would ever dislodge Mugabe or Zanupf. They meet and strategise as political parties regularly. They say so openly. How then would the ANC help dislodge Zanupf? Let alone Chamachamapinduzi’s Membe? Come on guys.
people should be intelligent enough to realize facts on the ground.that article is well read…..
once a thief always a thief.No amount of sanitizing it will change it….
I would love to read the rest of the article. My greatest fear is that the MDC will fail to put up a fight in 2018 because they continue to ignore the simple fact that they did not do enough. I hope that being the progressive party they are, they will invest some time in soul searching and changing tact. For 5 years, ZANU PF came up with this illaborate scheme to steal a national election. 5 years of an inclusive government where both ZPF and MDC were in power. How incompetent was the MDC to not see this happening underneath their noses? How can they run a country, where they will be required to play complex international politics, with people who may not always have our country’s best interests at heart? When they have failed to deal with a party that they claim never had the support of the people to begin with? A party full of aging has-beens? I shudder to think…
Zanu is a party of the people, not a party of intellectuals. They played their grass roots politics to perfection while the MDC leader was flying all over SADC trying to prevent an inevitable election from happening. MDC fell for the trappings of power and some of their ministers were involved in the same looting and corruption that ZPF is accused of (Mangoma, Mashakada and others).
MDC needs to get a grip, get rid of “More Girls” Tsvangirayi and get in touch with the grass roots. 2008 was a protest vote. They failed to realise that the landscape had changed. Relying on protest votes from the last election was a mistake.
I hope they have started their 2018 campaign already… They have a huge gap to close.
How can the West be shocked when it is using China and Israel to get our diamonds, platinum and tobacco through the back door. Business as usual.