'Tsvangirai will lose,' says Sikhala

CONTROVERSIAL politician and founder member of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Job Sikhala, has warned that Prime Minister (PM) Morgan Tsvangirai might lose the forthcoming presidential election to his nemesis, President Robert Mugabe.

Sikhala, leader of a breakaway MDC formation, MDC99, said the defeat of  former Kenyan prime minister Raila Odinga by Uhuru Kenyatta, the son of Kenya's founding president Jomo Kenyatta, was an instructive development highlighting how coalition governments could undermine the credibility of former opposition party leaders.

Uhuru was Odinga's deputy in the east African country's coalition government formed to end violence that erupted after Odinga refused to concede defeat at the hands of president Mwai Kibaki in 2007.

Odinga, son to the country's founding vice president Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, was the main opposition candidate in the country's 2007 disputed presidential election following which negotiations saw him joining hands with his foes as the premier before last week's defeat.

Tsvangirai had followed the same script, said Sikhala, after joining the inclusive government with President Mugabe's Zanu-PF after losing a disputed presidential election run-off from which he had pulled out citing violence. PM Tsvangirai had won the first round but failed to garner enough votes to be declared the winner.

Sikhala said PM Tsvangirai, whose tenure as Prime Minister has been blighted by sex scandals as well as corruption in MDC-T run local authorities, was likely to travel the same road.

"Tsvangirai has been taking (President) Mugabe as his friend for the past five years. Come election time, (President) Mugabe is going to dump him and deal with him decisively at the electoral front in a manner that would ridicule that friendship. He should learn from what has happened in Kenya; the moment you dine with your enemy, you must outshine your enemy, which Tsvangirai did not do for the past five years," said Sikhala.

"In terms of service delivery, they have been found wanting, in terms of corruption. Tsvangirai has been dancing to (President) Mugabe's tune and he will suffer for that at the election."

Asked whether he would contest the forthcoming polls, Sikhala only said: "We will cross the bridge when we get there."

A number of opinion polls have said  PM Tsvangirai would trail the Zanu-PF leader at the next polls, although the premier's spin-doctors say much should not be read from the surveys.

A survey conducted by the Mass Public Opinion Institute and supervised by South African academic Susan Booysen showed that support for the MDC-T had fallen from 38 percent in 2010 to 20 percent this year. By contrast, backing for Zanu-PF grew to 31 percent, from 17 percent over the same period.

The survey also found that President Mugabe would command the support of 31 percent of voters in a presidential election, compared to 19 percent for PM Tsvangirai, an alarming prospect for the MDC-T whose popularity stood at a healthy 55 percent some three years ago.