'Courting Tsvangirai?, that's hogwash,' says Zanu-PF

ZANU-PF yesterday dismissed as wishful thinking, MDC-T leader Mr Morgan Tsvangirai's claims that the party party is courting him for a senior Government post.

Mr Tsvangirai reportedly claimed on Wednesday, at the burial of MDC-T activist Rebecca Mafukeni in Harare that President Mugabe was trying to rope him into Government. His claim was despite the fact that on Heroes Day President Mugabe told Mr Tsvangirai and his western masters to go hang if they could not recognise Zanu-PF's victory.

Mr Tsvangirai claimed the move was aimed at giving "legitimacy" to the election, which Mr Tsvangirai alleges were rigged.

However, in an interview yesterday, Zanu-PF Secretary for Information and Publicity Rugare Gumbo said Mr Tsvangirai's claims were utter lies.

"Those are blatant lies. Do you think President Mugabe would worry about a loser like Tsvangirai?" asked Gumbo.

He said Mr Tsvangirai was an incompetent person who became Prime Minister through the GNU, not because he was a capable leader.

"All he is doing is wishful thinking. He was talking rubbish. One cannot get advice from Tsvangirai. We do not know what he hopes to achieve by those lies," said Gumbo.

After losing the election with the widest margin in the history of the country, Mr Tsvangirai and his MDC-T have said they have "tonnes" of evidence to prove the election was rigged.

However, to date they have not produced the said evidence.

Mr Tsvangirai has since filed a petition with the Constitutional Court (Concourt) seeking nullification of the election results. The petition has unsworn affidavits.

President Mugabe has filed opposing papers to the petition. Through his lawyer, Mr Terence Hussein of Hussein, Ranchod and Company, President Mugabe argues that he and Zanu-PF won the elections because of their sound manifesto and people-oriented policies.

The President argues that the fact Mr Tsvangirai filed an unsworn statement, may be indication that he does not want to risk the prosecutable crime of perjury.

He said Mr Tsvangirai's petition contained self indulgent generalisations, sweeping statements and outlandish exaggerations all of which were not made under oath.

The Concourt hearing has been scheduled to start tomorrow.

President Mugabe routed Mr Tsvangirai by about one million votes for the Presidency, while Zanu-PF ran riot, winning 160 National Assembly seats against MDC-T's 49, with the remaining seat going to prominent Harare lawyer, Mr Jonathan Samukange, who filed as an independent.

Although Mr Tsvangirai has said he would not accept the results as he claims the elections were rigged, observers from the African Union, the Southern African Development Community, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, China, Southern African Development Community Elections Forum, which groups the region's election bodies, Sadc church groups, the Sadc Parliamentary Forum and several others have judged the election as peaceful, free and fair.

Only the United Kingdom, the United States, the European Union and  Australia, known for funding Mr Tsvangirai and his party and imposing sanctions on Zimbabwe in a bid to force regime change, have said the elections were flawed.

Neighbouring Botswana is the only dissenting African voice on the issue.

Former Nigerian President General Olusegun Obasanjo, who heads the AU's vote monitoring mission, concluded that elections were peaceful. He said alleged flaws in the electoral process had not stopped the will of the people from being expressed.

Gen Obasanjo said the AU that had a team in Zimbabwe for the election campaign from 15 June had found that anyone who wanted to register had registered.

He said the campaign had been fair and free and the AU had not found any issues of hindrance during the campaign.