THE High Court petition by the leader of the MDC, Mr Morgan Tsvangirai, challenging the results of the March 9-11 presidential election won by President Mugabe by over 400 000 votes has raised a lot of debate both at home and abroad. In the interest of our readers, we reproduce President Mugabe's preliminary response to the issues raised by Mr Tsvangirai in his application to have the election set aside.

I am the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe. I have read the affidavit of Morgan Tsvangirai. Before responding to specific allegations in the affidavit, I wish to make preliminary remarks of a general nature on some important background issues behind the matter at hand.

Political violence.

Whereas some considerable concern has been raised by various national and international quarters over allegations of political violence in Zimbabwe, those raising such concerns often ignore or forget the fact that the spiral of political violence that has been witnessed in the country in recent years was actually introduced into our national politics by the petitioner and others in or associated with his political party when they organised food riots and stayaways in 1998. This was part of their then campaign to change the Government unconstitutionally.

The petitioner and his political associates used the 1998 food riots and stayaways to pave the ground through violent means for the launching of their political party late in 1999.

During the work of the Constitutional Review Commission, established by law to gather the views of Zimbabweans on the kind of constitution they wanted for themselves and posterity between May and December in 1999, the petitioner and his associates used threats, political intimidation and actual violence to disrupt meetings of, and deny the public access to, the commission.

The petitioner and his associates continued with their threats, political intimidation and acts of political violence during the referendum campaign on the proposed constitution drafted by the Constitutional Review Commission in January and February 2000.

Concerned about the escalation of political intimidation and violence that the petitioner was bringing into our national politics 20 years after our national independence when Zimbabweans had come of age in their hard won democracy, national unity, peace and stability consolidated through the historic Unity Accord in 1987, I made a special national appeal in January 2000 against political violence ahead of the February 12 & 13 referendum on the draft constitution.

Despite my January 2000 national appeal against political violence ahead of the constitutional referendum, and notwithstanding the fact that the petitioner's political party won the referendum with the rejection of the draft constitution, and further notwithstanding that I specifically accepted the result of the February 2000 referendum and called on Zimbabweans to maintain their national unity, peace and stability beyond the referendum, the petitioner and his party went against the national desire for peace and stability and instead stepped up their campaign of threats, political intimidation and violence across the country.

The petitioner, his political party and affiliated organisations widened and depended their acts of unprovoked threats, political intimidation and violence in the run-up to the June 2000 parliamentary election attacking homes of officials and members of my party including my house in Highfield, Harare.

The petitioner's apparent commitment to violence was dramatised in October 2000 when he addressed a rally at Rufaro Stadium in Harare attended by a crowd, which some sections of the media sympathetic to him estimated at 20 000 where the same media quoted him as having said: "Time for national action is now. We cannot wait for 2002 (when the presidential election was due) . . . Mugabe should go peacefully. If he does not want, we will remove him violently.

A reputable Australian public television network revealed allegations that the petitioner had hatched a plot to assassinate me ahead of the March 2002 presidential election in a bid to seize power through unconstitutional, illegal and violent means. Naturally these revelations left the public shocked and fearful in the light of the petitioner's October 2000 vow to use violence to remove me from office illegally and unconstitutionally.

Despite the foregoing record, dating back to 1998, of a pattern of unlawful acts and utterances of political intimidation and violence by the petitioner, his political party and affiliated organisations, it is most ironic that he has meanwhile sought to adopt a rule of law and anti-violence political platform. The petitioner's approach is based on a clear and present double-standard wherein he, his political party and affiliated organisations instigate, perpetrate and provoke political violence in order for them to condemn, for political purposes, the very same violence they would have committed and provoked in the first place.

Of concern has been the petitioner's manipulative use of threats, political intimidation, violence and manipulation of the media that throughout my 52 rallies in the campaign for the March 2002 presidential election, I made repeated calls against violence and this was not matched or reciprocated by the petitioner.

The petitioner's penchant for violence and lawlessness has been particularly evident in the post-election period during which he, his party and affiliated organisations such as the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN), Zimbabwe Crisis Committee, etc, have had no shame in declaring that the result of the March 2002 presidential election is null and void and that the Government is illegitimate.

Having made an extra judicial statement declaring the result of the March 2002 presidential election null and void, the petitioner has gone further to call for the unlawful removal of Government through mass action and other forms of violence.

Zimbabwe's Sovereignty and Sanctions.

Apart from engaging in unlawful acts of threats, political intimidation and violence, the petitioner has seriously compromised the sovereignty of Zimbabwe and put in jeopardy the country's constitution, laws, fundamental values and institutions to the detriment of both national security and national interest broadly defined.

In the run-up to the June 2000 parliamentary election, the petitioner used his political party and affiliated organisations, such as the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, National Constitutional Asembly, Amani Trust, Zimbabwe Crisis Committee, Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, etc, to campaign in conjunction with a host of foreign powers (led by the British government), rightwing business interests, academics, conservative churches, NGOs, intelligence and media operatives for the enactment of a punitive sanctions Bill against the Republic of Zimbabwe by the legislature in the United States of America. That bill whose alarming contents clearly seek to compromise and limit Zimbabwe's sovereignty by sidelining its constitution, laws and courts, was passed into law in America in 2001 in the run up to the 2002 presidential election.

After the punitive American sanctions Bill was passed into law, the petitioner, with the active and very public support of the British government led by Tony Blair's Labour Party, took his anti-Zimbabwe campaign to the 15-member European Union (EU) asking it to impose punitive economic and political sanctions against Zimbabwe. In another attack on Zimbabwe's sovereignty, the EU obliged and imposed the so-called smart sanctions in February 2002 targeting some selected members of my party, the Government and myself, just weeks before the March 2002 presidential election.

As if all this was not bad enough for Zimbabwe's sovereignty and strategic economic interests, the petitioner went further to join the British, Australian, Canadian and New Zealand governments to wage a racist campaign for the suspension and even expulsion of Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth all in apparent aid of the petitioner's political ambitions.

When Zimbabwe was irregularly suspended from the Councils of the Commonwealth hardly a week after the March 2002 presidential election, the petitioner applauded and celebrated the suspension and called for more punitive actions against Zimbabwe from the international community as a strategy of intimidating Zimbabweans by giving them the impression that all manner of economic and political hardships would befall them because they had not voted for the petitioner.

At one point the petitioner, and several other organisations linked to his political party, even went as far as calling for military intervention in Zimbabwe.

Needless to say, this manifestly frightening development of inviting military intervention must have alarmed Zimbabwe's service chiefs and the national defence forces in as much as it would have alarmed their counterparts elsewhere around the world in constitutional democracies whose societies cherish and are held together by a threshold of sovereign values and fundamental principles that are not negotiable. The events that have occurred in Austria, France and Holland are relevant in understanding the posture adopted by the service chiefs.

A clear and most unfortunate threat to national sovereignty arising from the petitioner's disdain for and subversion of Zimbabwe's constitution, laws and institutional processes came just before the March 2002 presidential election when the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, publicly declared, in a manner that particularly dramatised for the rest of the world the kind of gross intimidation that Zimbabwean voters were being subjected to by a former colonial power, that the presidential election in Zimbabwe will not be free and fair if the petitioner does not win.

Another example of the petitioner's readiness to associate with external forces at the expense of Zimbabwean legal institutions and processes to the detriment of our national sovereignty is how he made himself part of the British influenced Commonwealth Election Observer Group whose report on the conduct of the March presidential election has been condemned by many independent observers as biased.

In the run-up to, and immediately after the March presidential election the petitioner shared the same hotel (The Meikles) with members of the Commonwealth Election Observer Group and was on many occasions seen with some of them at the hotel.

This should explain why the petitioner has used more or less the same language used in the biased report of the Commonwealth Election Observer Group which claimed that the March presidential election did not reflect the will of the people of Zimbabwe despite its observation that the administration of presidential election, especially the verification and counting of votes was meticulous.

In fact, the leader of the Commonwealth Election Observer Group, General Abubakar, said quite categorically that the administration of elections in Zimbabwe, particularly the verification and counting of votes, was so tight that it is beyond manipulation by anyone. All other election observer groups did not share the biased conclusions of the British influenced Commonwealth Election Observer Group except for the Sadc Parliamentary Forum, which supported the petitioner by echoing the biased conclusions of the Commonwealth Election Observer Group.

Curiously, the Sadc Parliamentary Forum is an NGO made up of opposition politicians whose political parties have links with the petitioner's party.

Even more curious is the fact that the Sadc Parliamentary Forum observer team was wholly funded by the European Union which, led by Tony Blair's Labour Party government, took a position against the Government, my party and me personally well before the election.

In fact, when the European Union's Pierre Schori was deported from Zimbabwe after coming to the country under false pretences, using a tourist visa as a cover for his real assignment as a would-be leader of the European Union observer team which had been denied accreditation, he publicly declared that his mission would be taken over by the Sadc Parliamentary Forum. The forum's conclusions against the result of the March presidential election did not come as a surprise nor did the petitioner's association with those conclusions given his readiness to support foreign viewpoints and positions against Zimbabwe.

Taking a cue from Tony Blair's pre-election definition of what would constitute a free and fair presidential election result in Zimbabwe, the British government, with the support of the EU, the United States of America, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and their world media, then embarked on a self-fulfilling prophecy by declaring that the March 2002 presidential election was neither free nor fair and did not reflect the will of the people of Zimbabwe.

In a clear attack on Zimbabwe's sovereignty, especially its constitution and laws that provide a legal recourse to an aggrieved candidate who wishes to challenge an election result, the petitioner promptly embraced the foreign position and took it as his own.

The fact that the petitioner has since the formation of his political party taken public positions that parrot public pronouncements of Tony Blair's Labour party government in Britain is best explained by the documented fact, which the British government has admitted that the petitioner's party was formed and has been run with funding from the British government through the Westminster Foundation supported by Britain's three major political parties namely, Labour, the Conservative and Liberal parties all which have taken similar anti-Zimbabwean positions in support of the petitioner.

Ironically, the same parties now funding the MDC under the guise of supporting democracy did not provide similar support to the liberation movement in Zimbabwe during UDI. On the contrary the same comfort and support was given to the illegal regime of Ian Smith, some of whose members are today leading officials or supporters of the petitioner and his party.

In view of the petitioner's connection with Tony Blair's Labour party government and with other foreign powers, and particularly the fact that he invariably takes the same position on Zimbabwean national issues taken by foreign interests, it has been difficult, and in fact impossible, for my party Zanu-PF, the government and me personally to know when the petitioner is speaking or acting for himself or his party as Zimbabweans for Zimbabweans and when he is speaking or acting as a front or proxy for foreign interests especially British, that are inimical to Zimbabwe's sovereignty.

Access to Public Broadcaster.

Over the last two or so years, the petitioner has sought to give the impression that he has no access to the public broadcaster when the true position is that he, his party and affiliated organisations have used threats of violence, political intimidation and actual violence against personnel from the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) and other public media from Zimpapers. His party has declared its meetings and functions no go areas for the public broadcaster and those media practitioners from the public broadcaster and Zimpapers who have not heeded this threat have been physically assaulted by the petitioner's supporters on a number of occasions.

Whereas the petitioner, his party and affiliated national and international organisations have variously alleged lack of access to the public broadcaster, it is a matter of the public record that during the run up to the March 2002 presidential election, the petitioner and his party refused to be interviewed by the public broadcaster and demanded unfettered access to live broadcasts. Even though the petitioner, his political party and affiliated local and international organisations have variously alleged that the political field was skewed against the petitioner supposedly because of claims that he did not have access to the public broadcaster nothing could be further from the truth.

The fact is that global media access is the one advantage that the petitioner clearly had over me in an unprecedented manner.

It is common cause that Zimbabwe, my party, the Government and myself personally have endured a particularly vicious onslaught from the global media never before seen in the annals of postcolonial history.

In particular from influential media such as the BBC and CNN and a host of international newspapers and magazines. The global media were decidedly in favour of the petitioner.

During the run-up to the March 2002 presidential election, Tony Blair's Labour party government in Britain used the BBC to help set up a pirate radio station in London, called SW Africa, to broadcast daily three-hour propaganda specifically aimed at demonising my party and me personally.

This illegal station is still broadcasting to Zimbabwe to this day on behalf of the petitioner and no one else.

The illegal station advertises its programmes in the Daily News, a paper that claims to enjoy the largest circulation and readership in Zimbabwe (as compared to Zimpapers titles which include the Herald, Sunday Mail, Chronicle and Sunday News). The Daily News was established with British funding specifically to support the petitioner.

Another pirate radio station, called Voice of People (VOP) was set up in Holland to beam three-hour daily propaganda broadcasts to Zimbabwe on behalf of the petitioner by demonising my party and me.

In effect and through the global media, the petitioner internationalised the campaign against my party, the Government and myself. This greatly skewed the political field against me in favour of the petitioner thereby making his claim that he had no access to the public broadcaster baseless.

In the circumstances, the use of the global media as aforestated, coupled with the official and unofficial punitive economic and political sanctions imposed by the EU, USA, and the white Commonwealth countries (Canada, Australia and New Zealand), constituted electoral and political intimidation not only of members of my party Zanu PF but also of Zimbabweans in general, especially voters.