THERE is something about the way Donald Trump presents himself to the public that is reminiscent of a certain former British Prime Minister and the maverick Morgan Tsvangirai which makes politics look ugly; like a game of clowns.
The trio of Trump, Tony Blair and Tsvangirai have a penchant for touching a raw nerve.
Blair brought the British a political headache that the Queen’s nation is struggling to overcome, while in Trump, the conclusion for embittered Americans is that this is the leader they do not want.
On Monday night, Trump was back in the news again and as widely expected, stoking controversy when he tried to mask his impending electoral defeat by borrowing from Tsvangirai’s tired mantra through his earlier assertion that the 2016 general election will be ‘rigged’ against him.
The Trump fears can only be diluted by an African observer mission taking part in the American polls.
As Trump slipped in the first polls, to be released after the Democratic National Convention, he took to questioning the integrity of the nation’s electoral system, first at an afternoon rally in Ohio and then during an interview with Sean Hannity on the Fox News Channel.
“I’m telling you, November 8, we’d better be careful, because that election is going to be rigged,” Trump said on the Fox News interview.
“And I hope the Republicans are watching closely or it’s going to be taken away from us.”
Before the interview, Trump had warned supporters in Columbus, Ohio, that the stakes may already be stacked against him for November.
“I’m afraid the election is going to be rigged, I have to be honest,” Trump said then.
But herein lies the confusion within Trump’s camp.
Sean Spicer, a chief strategist and spokesman for the Republican National Committee (RNC), declined to say if the RNC agrees with Trump’s statement.
“I think you should seek further clarification from the campaign,” Spicer said.
What is ironic about Trump’s shock expression of fear of rigging is that the US, which claims to have the best voting system, finds itself bogged in the same quagmire it has often accused Zimbabwe of.
Every election in Zimbabwe is always alleged to have been rigged.
The July 31 2013 harmonised elections quickly come to mind.
The African Union (AU) observer mission to Zimbabwean elections led by former Nigerian President, Olusegun Obasanjo, and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) one chaired by Tanzanian Foreign Affairs Minister, Bernard Membe, said the elections were free, peaceful and credible.
But this was quickly dismissed by Western powers who claimed the elections had been rigged.
In the US, Trump made reference to voting sites, predominately in minority neighbourhoods of urban areas in which 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney received hardly a single vote.
“You had precincts where there were practically nobody voting for the Republican (sic),” Trump said.
Trump’s remarks follow his weekend calls to change the dates of the three general-election debates because two of them are scheduled at the same time as pro-football games.
Trump said in a Saturday interview with ABC News that he had received a letter from the National Football League taking issue with the debate timing.
Already there are spirited efforts by the West to observe the 2018 elections in Zimbabwe.
This has, however, been dismissed by Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa who said in February that Zimbabwe would choose countries and institutions it desires to monitor its election.
Such is the gobbledegook that Western media networks and their governments peddle to the world about ‘free and fair’ elections.
Most curiously, however, they say for elections to be ‘free and fair’ they must be won by the opposition.
As a result, the European Union (EU), at the instigation of the usual suspect Britain, want Harare to allow the United Nations (UN) to supervise the 2018 elections.
But VP Mnangagwa, who also oversees the Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Ministry, asserted that it was the prerogative of the Government of Zimbabwe to choose who participates in the country’s electoral processes.
“Our position as Zimbabwe has not changed,” he said.
“We are a sovereign state and we run our own elections like a sovereign state and we choose as to who will observe our elections.
“I hear that the media is talking about such a push, but as Government, we have not been approached by the EU to say they wish that the UN observes our elections.
“Normally we always have our sister countries in SADC who send observer missions.
“We always have the AU which also sends missions to observe elections.
“Also other member-countries may do so in Africa and a few from outside Africa whom we accept to come and observe.”
VP Mnangagwa’s statements also dovetail with President Robert Mugabe’s presentation at the 26th AU Summit where the Zimbabwean leader castigated colonisers who are in Africa as ‘spies, pretenders, some say they are here in Africa to assist us, even in armed groupings in our territories’ effecting regime change.
Africa must observe American polls in order to expose the rigging that Trump is whinnying about.
Let those with ears listen.