IT would have been an intriguing political affair for Western countries if Morgan Tsvangirai of Zimbabwe and his close ally Raila Odinga of Kenya were to be on the same stage as heads of state of their respective countries were it not for the resilience of the people of Zimbabwe and Kenya respectively.
There is so much in common for these two men leading opposition parties in their respective countries, however, one issue that stands tall in this commonality is, that their borrowed wings cannot simply fly.
To the West maybe?
On June 22 2008 Tsvangirai pulled out of the presidential run-off against President Robert Mugabe, saying he would no longer participate in what he claimed was ‘this violent, illegitimate sham of an election process’.
Despite Tsvangirai’s ‘withdrawal’, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) said the polls would go ahead.
The run-off was held on June 27 2008.
Tsvangirai claimed that ‘political violence’ would make it impossible for the polls to be held peacefully.
He then called on the United Nations (UN) and the African Union (AU) to intervene to stop ‘genocide’ in Zimbabwe.
And here we go.
On October 10 2017 Odinga announced that he had pulled out of the October 26 election re-run.
Odinga claimed his withdrawal would give the electoral commission enough time to introduce reforms that will help deliver a more credible election.
The Kenyan Supreme Court cancelled the result of the original August 8 2017 poll, which saw Uhuru Kenyatta declared winner.
And Kenyatta has since said he is ready to proceed with the new vote as planned.
The Kenyan electoral commission the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) said Kenyatta had won the August vote by a margin of 1,4 million votes or 54 percent of the total, compared to Odinga’s 45 percent.
To its credit, the IEBC has said the polls will go ahead.
And the similarities get more interesting.
Tsvangirai fled the country to neighbouring Botswana claiming his life was under threat but it later turned out that Zimbabwe’s neighbour was in fact providing bases for training renegades and MDC-T militia who would unleash violence in the country.
In Botswana, Tsvangirai rallied the so-called international community to intervene in what he termed the ‘Zimbabwean crisis’.
It so happened that Odinga, who has evidently borrowed notes from Tsvangirai in a typical case of one blind man leading the other, found himself in Britain last week and delivered an all-too familiar script.
Odinga left Kenya on Wednesday last week and spoke at the Royal Institute of International Affairs at Chatham House in the UK.
“The 26th is a no deal, you can take that to the bank,” Odinga said.
“The 26th will not happen, if it happens it will not be an election in the Republic of Kenya… there will not be credibility.”
In an interview with Saturday Standard at The Conrad Hotel in St James Park he said the IEBC ‘would be performing an illegality if it goes on with the October 26 presidential election’.
“When we wrote to the IEBC for my withdrawal, it meant they have to organise fresh election in 90 days,” he said.
“There will be no elections on October 26, that should be clear.”
He said the world must not endorse ‘regimes with dubious records and abandoning democracy activists and civil society in the name of stability, war on terror and business’.
“I express the fear that we are entering an era of anything goes with regard to democratisation with the West being seen to be turning its back on democracy by cutting funding,” he said.
This is where President Kenyatta’s intervention comes in handy.
The much loved Kenyan leader speaks like President Mugabe.
While campaigning in Kenol, Murang’a County last week, President Kenyatta said the country does not need foreign mediators for it is not in a crisis.
“We are not interested in mediation or being put together,” he said.
“Kofi Annan is not present in Kenya.
“He (Raila) should fly back to the country to mobilise voters.
“We told you before that he never wanted an election and he still does not want one, that’s why he is busy claiming that the country is at war.”
The MDC-T’s strategy has always revolved around mobilising the so-called international community in order for the country to have what they say are ‘credible elections’.
This myopic thinking is drawn from the fact that for an election to be deemed free and fair it has to have the blessings of these ‘international people’.
But the world has now begun to understand Zimbabwe’s stance taken in 2002 (when the country announced that it would not allow observers from hostile nations to monitor its elections) that Africa, and indeed the rest of the developing world can hold their own elections which are credible.
We learnt recently in the US presidential elections that we have little to learn from elections if the scandals that rocked those polls are anything to go by.
We will stick to our own principles while we watch the likes of Tsvangirai and Odinga attempting to fly with their broken wings.
Let those with ears listen.