Tsvangirai’s UK trip that rattled Zanu PF

By Luke Tamborinyoka

It started as a simple invitation to MDC president Morgan Tsvangirai to address the Royal Institute of International Affairs, but it appeared to have severely rattled our colleagues from what we have come to know as a party that claims overwhelming electoral victory but with underwhelming delivery on the ground.

Tsvangirai has been on a week-long trip to the UK. His hectic schedule in London began with his address at Chatham House, moved up to engagements with top EU and UK government officials and culminated with his interaction with Zimbabweans at a rally in Birmingham.

Even before Tsvangirai went to the United Kingdom, I counted 17 stories in the State media all denigrating Tsvangirai for being invited to speak at Chatham House.

The Chatham House invitation was not an issue when Zanu PF’s Walter Mzembi was invited to speak at the same forum in November last year. It was an issue when Tsvangirai was invited ostensibly because his invitation to speak at this prestigious forum debunked the myth that he had become finished political goods after the election of July 31.

Since the last election, Zanu PF has been at pains to depict a politically finished Morgan Tsvangirai, even though their daily posture sends out a completely different message.
We have come to enjoy the daily denigration of Tsvangirai by those who claim he is politically finished.

The basic rule in political communication is never to mention your political opponent, especially when you say he is finished because by doing so you are confirming their relevance to the national discourse.

You cannot claim that we finished with Morgan Tsvangirai on July 31 but continue being preoccupied with him and chanting his name, even to the extent of talking about him for 45 minutes at a funeral where he is not the deceased!

The unintended consequence of attacking his UK trip even before he left Harare was to unwittingly publicise his visit and send the message that Tsvangirai so matters to the national discourse that he is worth mentioning every day in State newspapers and even in anonymous columns associated with Mugabe’s office.

The unintended consequence is the positive spin it ends up giving to the Tsvangirai brand, when a whole State machinery is fixated on Morgan Tsvangirai and his aides at the expense of a crashing economy!

Despite the intention to portray a vanquished brand, the number of stories dedicated to Tsvangirai seemed to instead boost his national profile and to couch him as a figure of national and global significance and relevance.

The contradiction has always been that if Tsvangirai is finished politically as claimed, why waste acres of space talking about him?

One Nathaniel Manheru thinks having a meeting with the UK government is based on the misconception that we are still a member of the British Commonwealth.

It is lost on him that where the EU wants to unconditionally re-engage with the illegitimate regime in Harare, it makes diplomatic sense to meet with EU members — and the UK is one of them.

The problem with Manheru is that he thinks he is very smart while everyone else is an idiot. The only daft person, dear Manheru, is a whole presidential spokesperson who dismally lacks the conviction of his conscience to speak under a pseudonym that has dismally failed to hide his identity.

The daft ones are the message sentinels who allow their boss to say the economy is on the mend when the reality is out there for everyone to see.

You don’t have to pretend to be incognito. A man of your position, Manheru, must speak on record, in broad daylight and not through nocturnal platforms from whence he derives his pseudonym.

But just as a barking dog will not stop a moving train,  Tsvangirai went to the UK and executed his business despite the shrill calls of political jealousy by enemies of democracy.

Notwithstanding the wild cheers from people of all nationalities as the MDC leader walked the streets of London and Brentford, Tsvangirai did not leave any doubt whatsoever that he remains a fountain of hope for the distressed people of Zimbabwe.

Apart from the Chatham House address, he had bilateral meetings with key leaders in the UK government, in the EU and also met with Trade Union Congress leader Frances O-Grady.

Just before the rally in Birmingham, the MDC leader with the leadership of the UK and Ireland province and the Lord Mayor of the city, councillor Shafique Shah with whom he discussed various areas of co-operation with MDC-run cities in Zimbabwe.

He addressed a press conference in Birmingham where he took time to respond to various issues from the crisis in the country to the barrage of personal attacks that have become media fodder over the years.

As a journalist myself, I saw the extent to which the two-decade old Zimbabwe crisis had cost the country’s media fraternity.

I saw a friend and a former classmate in journalism school, Lance Guma, who is now running nehandaradio and Nehanda TV, far away from his home country.

I saw and interacted with many fellow journalists Tichaona Sibanda and Makusha Mugabe, some of whom have joined the MDC abroad.

Though I had no opportunity to speak to him, I knew that my former friend and workmate, Mduduzi Mathuthu, was somewhere in the United Kingdom in the feverish hunt for fresh air after what I still think was his stupendous  decision to hug a hyena with the hope of remaining alive.

After all his engagements in the UK, especially with the Zimbabwean community at Birmingham, Tsvangirai’s spirits remain high.

The fixation with Morgan Tsvangirai is enough testimony to the magnitude and indestructibility of his brand.

Even though you claim he is politically finished, the decibels that continue to ring around his name continue to unwittingly grant him further existence in the national psyche.

But of course, truly daft political communicators will never grasp these basics in political communication. And that is why some of them write to impress and not to communicate!

*Tamborinyoka doubles as the spokesperson to MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai and director of Information and Publicity in the MDC. 

He writes here in his personal capacity.