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elections due by July 31.
Sources said Mr Bennett at the weekend convened a big meeting where he summoned party leader Mr Morgan Tsvangirai and senior MDC-T officials based in Harare and the white constituency bankrolling the party in South Africa.
Contrary to media reports that Mr Tsvangirai was in South Africa drumming up regional support ahead of a special Sadc summit on Zimbabwe, it turned out that he was attending Mr Bennett’s meeting.
Mr Tsvangirai’s spokesperson Mr Luke Tamborinyoka last night skirted around the agenda of his boss’ visit to South Africa.
“He (PM Tsvangirai) was on a private visit. Assuming that he met Bennett, Bennett is a bona-fide MDC congress officer.
“After all, the PM does not owe The Herald an explanation on what he does during the weekends.”
It is understood that the indaba was also attended by some white former commercial farmers, including Rhodies who left the country at independence.
Top on the agenda of the meeting was mapping out an election strategy for MDC-T, to deal with fundraising issues and the international mobilisation strategy.
Sources said the meeting also sought to handhold Mr Tsvangirai ahead of the special Sadc summit on election funding where his handlers expect him to lobby for poll postponement.
Mr Bennett is on record as saying Mr Tsvangirai remembers the advice of the last person he would have spoken to, while party secretary-general Mr Tendai Biti attributed Mr Tsvangirai’s rare moments of lucidity to prior preparation by party officials, him included.
The revelations are contained in a US diplomatic cable dated June 30 2009 released by whistle-blower website WikiLeaks that also had MDC-T organising secretary Mr Nelson Chamisa saying Mr Tsvangirai was given to taking advice from informal advisors, usually foreign, while ignoring the counsel of elected MDC-T officials.
Mr Tsvangirai, sources said, was scheduled to attend the meeting on Thursday, but was a bit hesitant to attend a predominantly white meeting that would project him as an askari of the Rhodies.
“The Prime Minister was invited to that meeting and he delayed his departure for South Africa for two basic reasons,” said a well-placed source.
“Firstly, he expected a Sadc summit to take place in Maputo and feared that he would miss out on that summit. Secondly, he has decided to be a little more circumspect in respect of gatherings that are all-white.
“He says he does not want a repeat of the Banket meeting of 2002 where he was filmed with all-white farmers. He feared that this predominantly white gathering would tarnish his image as an African politician.”
As such, Mr Tsvangirai only joined the meeting on Saturday and even then he was being cautious not to be seen surrounded by the white former farmers.
Another source said one of the key cost centres which the MDC-T is seeking funding for is the party’s propaganda project which had already secured a safe house in Highlands, Harare.
The project is being manned by former Daily News journalists Farai Mutsaka and Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi.
The propaganda project is supposed to be both audio visual and editorial.
“It is going to be a key platform for international image distribution all meant to discredit the election process.
“It will work as an alarm centre that will feed into social media sites to drive the MDC-T propaganda agenda in the course of election,” said the source.
Daily News editor Stanley Gama last night said he did not know anything about the departure of the two journalists from his stable since he was not at work.
However, whereas the Daily News has surrendered Mutsaka and Mukwazhi to the PM’s Office, Associated Press where Mukwazhi is also attached has not because AP is an important conduit towards circulating material from that alarm centre internationally.
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