Denzil FEINBERG CFP R.F.P. Sent: Tue, Jul 16, 2013 4:07 am Subject: FW: Cross & Buckle The Struggle Intensifies In the past few days it has become quite clear that the people handling the campaign of Zanu PF and Robert Mugabe have begun to panic. Their confidence up to now has been based on their grip on the administration of the electoral process and the electoral playing field. This has begun to unravel and they now face the possibility that their best laid plans might come to naught. On the MDC side of the game, our team is in the field and fully deployed. Political activity is intense across the country with rallies and house meetings taking place in all areas. Morgan Tsvangirai is working flat out with 3 to 4 rallies a day in the various Provinces and will wrap up this week with rallies in the Midlands and then on Saturday at White City Stadium in Bulawayo. The rallies last weekend in Mutare and Masvingo went very well and reflect a growing swell of popular support across the country. Today Robert Mugabe was in Marondera and I would be interested to know how he got on after the fantastic rally we held in the same Stadium two weeks ago. One characteristic that seems to separate the two Parties is the energy levels at these events. The media people tell me that the Mugabe rallies are lackluster and lifeless by comparison. The other big difference is that the MDC rallies are not concentrated on character assassination and slander of their opponents and instead concentrate on policies and programmes. But the real struggle is not in the public sphere – it’s behind closed doors and in the board rooms and corridors of State agencies. Two years ago a secret CIO report to Zanu PF said that they could no longer win elections. It pointed out that a survey showed that the Party now commanded only about 15 per cent support and this could not be overcome by the normal rigging methods. This report gave rise to the plans for a coup – either a direct military coup or a political coup. Both were initially frustrated by intense pressure from regional leaders led by the South Africans. When finally they were able to engineer an early election (the “political coup”) they found that they were not ready and we were, then they discovered that we knew what they were planning (the ambush scenario) and were working to counter their plans. So now we have panic – they are hurriedly trying everything and anything. The ZEC and Registrar Generals Offices – previously secure centers of control are slipping away from them. The security services are switching sides – for example the special voting exercise this weekend and today where thousands of police and army were meant to vote. Suddenly they discovered that this would not be under controlled conditions and that the majority were likely to vote MDC. They now had to try and limit the damage and tried to stop the majority voting. We will have about 1000 observers in the country on voting day – several times the number in 2008. In addition we will have a JOMIC team in every Ward, 2000 floating observers from the MDC and many thousands of polling agents and observers from Civil Society. Their plans to use their physical control of the rural areas to manipulate the polls depends on a skewed voters roll (now fully exposed) and the fact that the polling stations in these areas are almost all uncovered by the Observer Missions (the Five Stare Hotel Brigade) and the Political parties. From my own personal experience in the past three months, Zanu PF control and dominance in the rural areas is much reduced and they can no longer count on them for this exercise. If they cannot control the voting and then cannot control the counting and reporting of the results, quite frankly they are finished. In the meantime the groundswell of support for the MDC (T) grows and I think is going to hit a peak at just about the right time. I am constantly amazed by the sophistication and understanding of ordinary Zimbabweans in every walk of life. This coupled to the near pervasive character of the cell phone culture and the social media means that they now have access to information on a scale that has never been possible before. This plus the activities of a secretive group called “Baba Jukwa” is literally tearing the Zanu PF machine apart. So after 14 years of struggle against almost insuperable odds, we are now just 14 days away from the most important election since 1980. My bottle of Champagne has been sitting on the kitchen table all these years waiting for this day. Next weekend I will put it on ice in preparation for the big day. But at the same time, as I said at two meetings last week in my own Constituency, I will celebrate with a real sense of sadness for all those who cannot celebrate this moment with us and will reflect on the sacrifice so many have made to get us here. I will also somberly ponder the tasks that will face us as we strive to build the new Zimbabwe from the ashes of the old. Eddie Cross Harare 15th July 2013 Dear Family and Friends, The ugliness that is elections in Zimbabwe has started. For the last four years we’ve had a “unity” government but all signs of unity have gone out the window as the real, ugly, power struggles begins again. When Zanu PF launched their election manifesto it was covered live on the only television channel that is allowed to broadcast in Zimbabwe. The live coverage lasted just short of five hours, and was an uninterrupted ZBC TV broadcast without even a line at the bottom of the screen explaining what was going on or when normal programming would resume. Two days later when the MDC launched their election manifesto there was no live TV coverage at all and just a short report lasting around two minutes on the main evening news bulletin. Then the shockwaves began, starting with some big, frightening figures. 60,000 police are voting early despite the statement by the Minister of Finance that there are only 39,000 police on the payroll – so who are the other 21,000? Three to four million Zimbabweans living and working outside the country are not allowed to vote but staff at diplomatic missions are. In 2008, five thousand applications for postal voting came from foreign embassy staff at diplomatic missions around the world. Four years later the number has swollen to a massive 120,000. So who are the other 115,000? What’s that joke about how many diplomats it takes to change a light bulb? Next came more revelations about voter registration. When the process came to an end recently there were reports that thousands of people hadn’t been able to get to the front of the lines. A couple of days later we heard that in Harare alone over 300,000 people had failed to register. Extrapolate that number around the country for an even more frightening figure. Then came the list drawn up by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of individual countries invited to observe the elections. These include: Algeria, Kenya, Uganda, South Africa, China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Brazil, Jamaica, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba, Russia, Belarus and Serbia. Commenting on the list, a Crisis Coalition spokesperson wrote: “It’s not a birthday party where you invite your friends; it is a process where you bring in all those so you have a proper assessment of your processes…. there is an attempt to manage perceptions by courting favours and cherry picking.” Meanwhile at street level, tearing up election posters has become the favourite sport of the day, except it always happens at night. MDC posters in Marondera town are being torn down and replaced with those of a disgruntled candidate who lost in the primaries, decided to stand as an independent but is advertising using the MDC colours on posters. And then overnight came thousands of anonymous A5 flyers strewn all over Marondera urban and residential areas showing a black man carrying a white man on his back across a river. ‘Until when?’ was the question it posed at the top, followed by the words: "The black person is my younger brother, I am the elder. He is the donkey and I am the rider." The ugly, racist insinuation was met with contempt shown by the thousands of flyers left lying on the ground by midday the following morning. The money wasted on this sick little attempt to stir up race hate would be so much better spent on cleaning the town rather than adding more filth. Despite it all, there is a huge groundswell of hope pulling us forward and a never before seen determination to go and vote by everyone you meet. Until next time, thanks for reading. Love cathy 13th July 2013. Copyright Cathy Buckle.
Posted on: Thu, 25 Jul 2013 15:33:57 +0000
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