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'I'm trying to be patient' Tsvangirai tells MoS, 'but it's proving really hard'
Barbara Jones, Daily Mail (UK)
April 06, 2008

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=557523&in_page_id=1811

He walked back and forth across the newly-mown lawn, occasionally put his head in his hands and finally settled himself into a garden chair, staring into space.

Sitting in the sunshine, feet up on the coffee-table in front of him, he was a man contemplating his life's dream. He was on the verge of either greatness or great disappointment. In the dramatically failed state of Zimbabwe, no one could tell.

Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, 55, was officially 'in hiding', not a word uttered in public since last Saturday's crucial national elections.

But extraordinarily, at this time of hope and fears, lies and propaganda on the streets of Harare, the man who would be President had taken refuge in a tropical garden in the suburbs one day last week --and was chatting to The Mail on Sunday.

'I'm trying to be patient,' he said. 'Patience is a virtue, but today it's proving really hard.'

His security detail, seven officials from his party, the Movement for Democratic Change, in dark suits, stayed respectfully in the background. They answered mobile phones, ordered coffee, and watched their man from a distance. One of them drove into town to find some Lemsip. Mr Tsvangirai had a head cold.

'I came here to get away and think for a while. I didn't know you guys would be here', he said, smiling. 'I just wanted to be somewhere peaceful and listen to the birds sing.

'But yes, you're right, this is the most important day of my life --and the most important day in the lives of all Zimbabwean people.

'It's a very anxious time and we've got to get through it. The waiting is unbearable but we are used to waiting. In the past we were cheated out of our victory but this time I really believe we have put the right mechanisms in place so that ballot boxes cannot be tampered with.

'If Mugabe and his party want to rig the vote of course they will do their best. But this time even the official version we are hearing is showing us ahead.'

On that day in the garden Tsvangirai said he and his officials believed he had won 60 per cent of the Presidential vote, enough to take him home and dry.

'That is just our counting mechanism, we might not be right to the last point of accuracy,' he said. 'But I am daring to believe it's true.'

Mugabe's generals had warned that an early announcement of victory by the MDC would be tantamount to a coup d'etat.

Tsvangirai had nothing but contempt for this: 'Mugabe should know about coups,' he said. 'He has already launched a coup against his own people by making their lives hell and taking away their jobs, their food and their pride in their country'.

By Thursday, though, his party had risked that 'coup d'etat'. They went on record announcing a clear victory for Tsvangirai as President, and for the MDC winning a parliamentary majority.

But by Friday Mugabe's spokesman Bright Matonga was busy announcing: 'Our President is going to fight. He is not going anywhere. He has not lost. We are going to go hard and if there is a second round of elections to decide this we will fight to get the majority required.'

Fighting is what the people fear. Matonga added, somewhat mysteriously, that Mugabe's Zanu-PF Party had put 'only 25 per cent' into the recent elections, and would now unleash the remaining 75 per cent.

To many in beleaguered Zimbabwe, that means the prospect of intimidation, threats, arrests and beatings.

They have been through it before, and this time they have neither the stomach nor the energy for it.

Yesterday, as Mugabe met his Politburo chiefs to discuss last minute tactics in this long drawn-out affair, Mr Tsvangirai said he fears Mugabe is preparing a 'war against the people' in an attempt to hold on to power.

'Militants are being rehabilitated', he told a Press conference, adding that the central bank was printing money 'for the finance of violence'.

He said the MDC was reluctant to take part in an election run-off because of the growing risks of violence - and anyway there was no need for a run-off because he had already won the presidential elections last weekend.

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