Denford Magora's Zimbabwe Blog

Only moments ago, I got information about why exactly Robert "The Solution" Mugabe refuses to swear-in MDC Governors and Resident Ministers.

Impeccable sources confirm that Mugabe is pleading poverty and that there is nothing much Tsvangirai can do about this, since even he himself has said publicly that the government is broke.

At the time of their agreement, soon after the MDC issued an ultimatum for the resolution of outstanding issues, the actual figures were not mentioned and Tsvangirai simply announced that the exit packages were to be "decided at a later stage".

It is the actual money that is now proving a sticking point.

Mugabe's staff appear to be ecstatic about this turn of events. ZANU PF functionaries and officials are openly admitting that the excuse advanced by Mugabe is simply a ploy designed to bring pressure on Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDC-T.

Essentially, by taking this line, Mugabe is hoping to squeeze Tsvangirai to go back to the West and ask for budgetary support funds, to be given directly to the Zimbabwe government. As I told you in the article: What Mugabe Told Zuma - the Zimbabwe dictator is now using the issue of "sanctions" to his advantage in this Inclusive Government.

Everything that needs to be implemented, he says, needs money and the government does not have any. This explains why Zuma specifically said during his speech that the removal of sanctions will aid the speedy implementation of the Global Political Agreement's unresolved issues.

So far, donors and especially Western governments, have insisted that they will only support humanitarian causes in Zimbabwe, paying the money to Non-Governmental organisations.

They made a song and dance about it, despite our warnings that Mugabe's word should not be taken at face value. With the dictator, you only believe it when you see it.

But MDC-T supporters are now imitating their president's new-found faith in the integrity of Mugabe and praising his "commitment" to the GPA while blaming unnamed "hardliners" for the setbacks they encounter.

Perhaps the hardliners are forcing Mugabe not to honour his word on the Governors, resident ministers and Roy Bennett?

Of course, you will not hear a single squeak coming from MDC-T supporters now on this issue, having been so humiliated by Mugabe.

They must be feeling like fools.

Mugabe wants money and will not do anything Tsvangirai and the MDC-T want until he gets that money from the West. Even the Constitution-making process is in limbo because Mugabe refuses to let donors fund the process, claiming that doing so compromises the end-result in favour of "imperialists and their agents."

On the Constitution, he wants the money given to government, which will then disburse it to parliament for use in the process.

The West sees through this and are baffled why Tsvangirai and his apologists think they can make a difference by playing Mugabe's game, and on the dictator's terms as well.

It appears Robert "The Solution" Mugabe's daughter, Bona, flew back with her father from Dubai last week and the whole family was at the Showgrounds for the opening of the Harare Agricultural Show by Jacob Zuma.

I just wonder what the deal is with Robert Junior and Chatunga straightening their hair!

I thought you may enjoy this photograph, published over the weekend here in Zimbabwe.

Trudy Stevenson is going to Senegal as ambassador, it has now been confirmed today. Mutambara faced the humiliation of his first choice, Siyabonga Ncube, running away from the training. The media caught up with him as he ran around to try and buy a car in the city under the MPs Car Loan Scheme, which he considered a better way to spend his time than training to be an ambassador. The confusion in the Mutambara MDC is being fuelled by the machinations of Morgan Tsvangirai, who is courting Mutambara's MPs openly and even using the Speaker of parliament in some of his dirty tricks.

Today the Sunday Mail finally caught up with the scoop I gave you last week regarding Trudy Stevenson being an ambassador by the smaller MDC led by Arthur Mutambara, also one of the Deputy Prime Ministers of Zimbabwe.

It turns out Stevenson is not going to Sudan as I had announced. A friend on Facebook did point out when I posted the article that we have no embassy in Sudan.

Instead, Stevenson is going to Senegal, the French-speaking North African country when and if Mugabe decides that he is going to post the MDC ambassadors.

As I told you in that scoop story, the appointment of Stevenson, who is the MDC Mutambara Secretary for Research and Policy was in response to the refusal by the party's first choice, Siyabonga Ncube, to take up that post.

He ran away from the training of these new ambassadors being done by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs without telling his party after Morgan Tsvangirai promised him heaven, earth and the galaxy if he crossed over to the MDC-Tsvangirai together with the suspended Mutambara MPs and others that Tsvangirai is courting.

Siyabonga Ncubes appointment was supposed to create a parliamentary vacancy for Gibson Sibanda, Deputy President of the MDC to fill. He is currently in government illegally (as Minister of something or other in Mutambara's office) because the Constitution clearly states that he can only hang on to that job if he is a member of the legislature.

What has now happened is that Mutambara has been forced to downgrade the position of his deputy president. He is no longer referred to as a Minister but is officially known as a "Special Advisor in the Office of The Deputy Prime Minister!

Tsvangirai is causing havoc in the MDC-M. He is seriously courting Mutambara MPs in order to avert the disappearance of his parliamentary majority in the wake of the assault on it by Mugabe through the arrests of MDC Tsvangirai MPs.

In doing this, Tsvangirai has also enlisted the help of the Speaker of Parliament, who is the MDC-Tsvangirai chairman. He has been attending meetings held by the MPs Mutambara expelled and addressing them as an MDC Tsvangirai official.

Mutambara and the best Constitutional brains in Zimbabwe, Welshman Ncube (Secretary General of the MDC-M) had to issue a public statement accusing the Speaker of corruption and threatening to report him to the Anti-Corruption Commission if he failed to kick the dismissed parliamentarians out of the House.

The Speaker complied one day ahead of the deadline they had given him.

These expelled MPs are an enigma.

Some people think that they won their seats only because of their personal popularity and hence will carry the seats for MDC-Tsvangirai at by-elections.

Others point out that they were standing under the banner of Simba Makoni's presidential candidature. Makoni got 45% of the vote in Matabeleland, where the MPs have their seats and it is thought that their wins were informed by how people voted in the presidential election.

All the same, it will be a bruising battle for these seats, especially now that it has been confirmed that Mugabe refuses to consider extending the ban on the GPA parties contesting the seats against each other in the by-elections.

One foreign journalist observed in March this year that the MDC seem to be "in awe" of Mugabe after he observed the way they behaved at the swearing in and the subsequent meeting he attending, including the one above, at the launch of Finance Minister Tendai Biti's STERP, which has failed completely, with not a single thing wished for in it being realised. Now Biti says the West is not going to help after all and that he and Tsvangirai will take the Mugabe route and try to use whatever resources are in Zimbabwe to bring about recovery!!!!

Harare, Zimbabwe, 30 August 2009

Zimbabwe;s Finance and Secretary-General of the MDC-Tsvangirai has effectively announced the death of Zimbabwe by telling the media today that the moribund Inclusive MisGovernment has given up all hope of getting aid from outsiders and will now instead seek to find the money it needs locally.

He says the idea of expecting anything from the West "is a joke".

Of course, you will recall me being vilified when I said in March this year that no aid would come from the West and that before long Tendai Biti and Morgan Tsvangirai will be shouting at Britain and America in frustration.

MDC and Tsvangirai apologists said I was dreaming and that Tsvangirai wuold deliver the aid and I would be shamed. They have now been shamed.

This is extremely significant, this announcement from Biti. He specifically said "Zimbabwe is now on its own." Which is what some of us have been telling him all along.

To fully appreciate that this means the death of Zimbabwe, there are few things we need to understand. So, the context then, is as follows:

Was it not the MDC-T itself that, when it was still an opposition outside government, insisted repeatedly that the only way Zimbabwe could emerge from this financial morass was through the aid given to it by donors and aid agencies?

Was it not Tsvangirai and his party who, during their various campaigns for office, including last year in March, insisted that they had "partners just ready and waiting for a signal from us to release US$10 billion" to aid Zimbabwe's recovery?

That signal has now been given, has it not, with Tsvangirai touring the world and telling anyone who will listen that he and Mugabe are now best buddies, committed to the Inclusive MisGovernment and that all this was not reversible?

Where are those partners now?

Still, the more important thing to take from this announcement is that it means there is no recovery on the horizon in Zimbabwe. Things will now get worse, much worse.

Why?

Because what Tendai Biti has announced is no different from what Mugabe has been doing all along: trying to use internal resources to revive the economy.

As Mugabe struggled to do this, frozen out of the International community, the MDC-T jumped up and down like excited children, deriding (rightly so) these moves by Mugabe, saying it was all wasted effort, Zimbabwe would never recover until it re-engaged the Western powers with deep pockets.

So the MDC-T are now doing exactly what they have been telling us for a decade can not be done. They are now pursuing the same "Look Home" policy they have always maintained does not have a snowball's chance in hell of making an impact?

You see, we would at least get some confidence if the MDC-T had demonstrated while in power that they actually have substantive policies that can harness that local potential, the potential they now agree with Mugabe is all they have.

But, the MDC-T has demonstrated so far that it does not have a single policy initiative different from that of ZANU PF and Mugabe.

I will give US$50 to anyone who points out to me just one policy initiative from Tsvangirai that is different from Mugabe's, one that he has tabled and implemented as per his mandate.

Instead of acting differently from Mugabe, the MDC has adopted his way of doing thing, be it firing striking doctors, controlling prices (the daftest decision this Inclusive Government has ever made, which ensures that there is no prospect of service delivery improving).

The government of Morgan Tsvangirai (he is responsible for policy formulation and implementation, he keeps telling us, making this his government), has taken up Mugabe's approach to the Land Question, it has threatened companies like Telone, the telephone company and even the cellphone companies, DIRECTING them to reduce prices regardless of viability concerns.

Tsvangirai has failed to resolve the issue of Zimbabwe's massive mineral deposits, including gold and diamonds, with his own minister, who is deputising the Mining portfolio, instead adopting the Mugabe line and denying all evidence of abuses at the Chiadzwa diamond fields to the world.

Tsvangirai himself denies that there are continuing land invasions, taking Mugabe's line that the problem is white farmers who will not leave their properties, which have been acquired by his government.

Tendai Biti's own programmes, STERP and the 100-day Wishlist, are nothing but fanciful lists of Zimbabwe's woes, ending in an appeal to the world to give the government money to resolve them.

As a western diplomat told us towards the launch of Mavambo on July 1 this year:

"There is no plan in place and we keep asking Tendai to give us detailed requirements. He needs US$8 billion, is all he will say." The diplomat says it is not clear from any presentation what the US$8 million is for exactly and that his government ( a European one), would have been glad to told, for instance, how much tar, gravel etc is needed to resurface Zimbabwe's roads, after which they themselves would procure those materials and deliver them to the Zimbabwe Roads Agency.

But the MDC is failing even this test, instead turning around and demanding the money a la Mugabe, so that they can set their own priorities, such as buying luxury vehicles and houses for themselves.

In essence, then, Mugabe and Tsvangirai are peas in a pod. Their approaches to Zimbabwe's problems are now confirmed to have converged.

As a result, it is now almost certain that Zimbabwe will remain in a quagmire. SADC can not help with funds. Africa does not the money. And the West is now written off. Even the East, Mugabe's preferred partner, is proving coy when it comes to giving aid and donations.

Just as an aside, Biti, in the same interview carried by state media today, is already speaking of next year's budget and saying his strategy to be unveiled then will have a "three to four year horizon".

The significance of this is that it shows all and sundry that the MDC-T is now intent on staying in the Inclusive Government for five years. They are not moving out even as the people groan under the intolerable burdens imposed on them by this bloated and voracious regime of Mugabe and Tsvangirai.

Harare, Zimbabwe, August 29 2009

Sorry for the late update, but internet connectivity for me today was a nightmare. I was briefly able to log onto the net in the morning and then it all went haywire. I understand an upgrade is being done by the useless government-owned company that sees to things like this.

I am now using an alternative route to post this and it is to be expected that the Government company in charge will fail to finish their upgrade until sometime after Mugabe dies!!! It will be a long wait, either way.

Enough of that.

I now have information on the case that Mugabe presented to Jacob Zuma, which informed teh South African leader's stance yesterday as he met with the political "leaders" here.

Mugabe, I am told, informed Zuma that this government was a compromise and that he expected the MDC and Tsvangirai to pull their weight in ensuring that it works. He claimed Tsvangirai is not doing this and even warned Zuma that he will not be able to keep the "hotheads" in his party at bay if he is seen continually to be giving in to Tsvangirai without Tsvangirai doing his part.

Zuma apparently asked what Tsvangirai was expected to do and Mugabe inevitably trotted out the issue of sanctions.

The significant new thing that came out of the meeting, however, was how apparent it was that Mugabe is still extremely bitter about Tsvangirai's refusal to label the "sanctions" as just that, instead calling them "restrictive measures."

Mugabe told Zuma that he had confronted Tsvangirai with this specific charge at their last weekly report-back meeting, something the Prime Minister confirms.

To Mugabe, the fact that Tsvangirai refuses to acknowledge "sanctions" is an indication that the Prime Minister is not serious about calling for the lifting of such things as ZIDERA in America and other restrictions placed on Zimbabwe's ability to borrow internationally by both the US and Europe.

I am told that those who were with Mugabe during this meeting heard him for the first time accuse the Prime Minister of saying one thing in public while saying the opposite in private on this issue during his last trip overseas to drum up support for this moribund Inclusive MisGovernment.

Mugabe specifically told Zuma that the Prime Minister had requested President Obama to bar the ZANU PF minister of foreign affairs who was travelling with him from attending their meeting at the White House.

Mugabe says Tsvangirai did this so that he could privately tell Obama to maintain ZIDERA (the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act) as well as retain all the other restrictions placed on Zimbabwe at Bretton Woods and elsewhere.

Mugabe went on to say that his party, ZANU PF, was convinced that Tsvangirai was still working for a "regime change" agenda and was, therefore not sincere. He claimed that Tsvangirai has spoken to Hillary Clinton during her visit to South Africa recently and that he had it "on good authority" that regime change was the topic.

It is not clear whether the conversation was by phone from Harare, which would have been fairly daft of Tsvangirai. Still......

The Zimbabwean dictator asked specifically why he should "always be giving in" when Tsvangirai was making no attempt to meet him half way and instead seeking to "undermine the government and legitimate authority in Zimbabwe".

I am told that the upshot was that Mugabe pointedly told Zuma that unless and until sanctions are removed, he is not going to give in to anything else, saying he had "already done enough to show my goodwill. Ask Mr Tsvangirai what he has done to show his goodwill," Mugabe told Zuma.

Mugabe was insistent that the biggest outstanding issue in the GPA was this issue of sanctions and he specifically said the travel ban on him and his people can stay: he wants access to capital, to be able to borrow on the international stage from such bodies as the Bretton Woods Institutions.

Do not expect to see any movement at all on any of the issues that remain outstanding until Tsvangirai makes some major concessions to Mugabe, as he had started doing before Zuma arrived. I explained that in my article entitled Tsvangirai Reduced To Begging Mugabe.

So, same same, then. No change from my prediction of a long sweltering summer.

Perhaps while I am still at it, I can urge Nelson Chamisa, the Mercedes-Benz ML-driving MDC minister in charge of all thing internet to pull his finger out and get on with fulfilling the grandiose promises he made in that 100-day wishlist.

No much chance though, especially with Tsvangirai describing the performance of his government as "dismal" , like he did last week!!!

Like I said when the so-called STERP was launched, these people really haven't the foggiest what they are doing.

And that is scary.