The ruling ZANU PF has said the comparison between United States President Donald Trump and the late former Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe is inappropriate.
The party’s acting secretary for Information, Patrick Chinamasa said Trump by refusing to accept the outcome of the November 3 US election is in fact behaving like opposition MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa.
He speaks at the backdrop of a stand-off between the ruling party and MDC Alliance which accuses the former of conniving with the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) to manipulate the 2018 presidential election in favour of President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
Meanwhile, Trump is refusing to accept the outcome of the US November 3 election citing irregularities in the counting of votes in some key swing states.
He has since dragged some states to court and at some point called for the counting of votes to “stop” prompting some Americans to say he was eager to cling to power, at all costs, like Mugabe.
Chinamasa, however, said it was Chamisa who is refusing to accept the outcome of the 2018 election. He made the remarks during the party’s weekly media address saying:
If you wanted to liken Donald Trump to any personality in our political arena, it will be Chamisa. In fact, it will be Chamisa. President (Robert) Mugabe was never defeated and never refused to vacate as we know historically. It is not true (that he was defeated). He was never defeated in any election as Zanu PF, as President Mugabe since 1980.
In 2008, Mugabe lost to the late MDC veteran leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, but ZEC called for a rerun saying no candidate had attained 50 plus one percent of the votes cast as required by the constitution.
Some believe Tsvangirai had attained over 60 percent but ZEC was arm-twisted by ZANU PF to announce that he had attained fewer votes.
In the run-up to the election, MDC supporters were killed and intimidated by soldiers, war veterans and ZANU PF supporters prompting Tsvangirai to pull out of the race which Mugabe eventually won.