Cape Town – Zimbabwean MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai’s plans to take his poll challenge to SADC received a major knock yesterday after the regional bloc’s mediator on Zimbabwe, South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma endorsed President Robert Mugabe’s victory, News Day reported on Monday.

Tsvangirai and his party lost dismally to Zanu-PF and Mugabe in the general elections held last week.

Tsvangirai has since dismissed the election outcome as a “huge farce” and said he was in the process of compiling a dossier on how Mugabe stole the elections to be handed over to SADC and the African Union.

SADC brokered the Global Political Agreement (GPA) that culminated in the formation of an inclusive government between Mugabe and Tsvangirai following a disputed election in 2008.

Tsvangirai wants SADC and the AU to push for fresh polls, but Zuma yesterday issued a congratulatory statement to Mugabe after he controversially secured his seventh term in office.

In a statement released by South Africa’s Foreign Ministry, Zuma extended his “profound congratulations” to Mugabe for winning a seventh term in a “successful vote”.

Part of the statement reads: “President Zuma urges all political parties in Zimbabwe to accept the outcome of the elections as election observers reported it to be an expression of the will of the people.”

According to the report, MDC spokesperson Douglas Mwonzora said: “Well, maybe Sadc and other blocs maybe naturally tired of the Zimbabwean story. President Zuma may have issued the statement without the benefit of the evidence which we have on how the elections were stolen.

“We are going to give him [Zuma] and other leaders the detailed evidence of how the election was stolen and we hope they will use that to ensure Zimbabweans get the electoral justice they deserve.”

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