Mbeki’s man admits 2008 election fraud
A former senior aide to former SA president Thabo Mbeki has confirmed that he played a role in splitting the MDC in 2005, and scuttled Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s 2008 election victory because he was “un-African”.
This follows claims by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai in his book ‘At the Deep End’ that Mbeki helped in dismantling the then unstoppable movement and stymied his passage to state house.
The SA official also confirms Tsvangirai’s claim in the book that President Robert Mugabe was ready to hand over power to him after the 2008 elections.
In an exclusive interview with The Zimbabwean, the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Mbeki never trusted Tsvangirai whom he suspected of working with the British and Americans. He highlights that the intact and powerful MDC posed a “threat to Africa”.
“MDC was too powerful. Unfortunately, our administration never trusted Tsvangirai. We knew very well that he was working with Western countries.
If allowed to take over power in Zimbabwe then it was going to spell disaster for our continent as he was dealing with wrong people. We had put him under counter-surveillance and we knew all about his movements,” he said.
Questioned on the necessity of surveillance, the official highlighted that the prime minister was not trusted with power as he was undermining the African agenda by working with western countries. He further agreed that Prime Minister Tsvangirai won the 2008 elections but they made sure that he wouldn’t get into power as he didn’t represent African society.
“Tsvangirai was working with the whites; our intelligence always worked on him and we had our proof of that and we didn’t want to invite trouble in our region. We therefore saw it necessary to have a coalition government in Zimbabwe for the time being as we were waiting for him to reform. In 2008 he absolutely won the election but it wasn’t the right time for him to take over the country as he was working with the wrong people,” he said.
The official also claimed that they had arranged for President Robert Mugabe to resign after losing the elections to Tsvangirai, but his henchmen and uniformed commanders refused to comply. He further alleged that Mugabe was to spend the remaining part of his life either in Namibia after an arrangement with retired president Sam Nujoma, or Guinea Bissau.
“Mugabe had agreed to retire either to Namibia or Guinea - but the commanders persuaded him to stay on. Tsvangirai was not an option to take them forward and that is when we settled for a government of national unity which saw both men agreeing to share power,” he added
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