ngirai is making a last ditch effort to galvanise the international community into action over Zimbabwe. He will tell European leaders that they must get involved in extricating the nation from the economic meltdown and political logjam that is causing severe suffering to millions and having a negative impact on the entire southern Africa region.
Founding president of the MDC, Tsvangirai and his modest delegation of four will meet with several European leaders during the next two weeks, including the Nordic states, Belgium, France, Germany and the UK.
“President Tsvangirai will highlight the situation in Zimbabwe and tell the world leaders that the crisis is now a national emergency. It is no longer a Zanu (PF) or MDC issue.
It needs international help,” said party spokesman Nelson Chamisa in an interview with The Zimbabwean this week.
Tsvangirai is accompanied by secretary general Tendai Biti, deputy treasurer Elton Mangoma and deputy secretary for international affairs Grace Kwinjeh.
His goal is to force Mugabe to relinquish power to a government of national unity, which will be tasked with writing a new, democratic constitution and ensuring free and fair elections held under international supervision.
He will address Zimbabweans in the UK at a meeting in London on Sunday night.
This trip, the first since the MDC Congress in March this year, is part of the diplomatic offensive aimed at informing international opinion and urging the world community to come to the aid of oppressed Zimbabweans.
Meanwhile the second prong of MDC’s strategy – the nation-wide outreach programme to coordinate national sentiment against tyranny – continues.
“While the rest of the country was reverberating with the echoes of the party’s victory in Budiriro, about 10,000 people gathered at Gokwe Centre in the Midlands North province on Sunday with the party leadership to chart the way forward,” reported Chamisa.
Vice President Thokozani Khupe, told the crowd that the MDC was ready to govern, and had already put in place a reconstruction and stabilization framework for a post-Mugabe era.
“The leadership has realized that Zanu (PF) and Mugabe are already history. The MDC belongs to the future, and the rural people must be part of the democratic train to save our country and build a new Zimbabwe,” she said.
Rallies are scheduled this weekend in Bindura, Chiredzi and Tsholotsho.
“Campaign teams are being deployed to all corners of the country in fulfillment of a Congress resolution that the party will mobilize Zimbabweans for a sustained programme of mass resistance against the regime to demand a new Zimbabwe and arrest the declining political and economic situation engulfing the nation,” Khupe said.