In the darkened provincial hall, the audience of 40-50 Zimbabweans could hardly see the man on the stage who was claiming to have come to liberate them from President Robert Mugabe’s autocratic rule.

Moments before he was due to speak, one of Zimbabwe’s rolling power cuts had hit the region. Nervous spectators speculated it had been timed to undermine the appearance of the speaker, Simba Makoni, a former finance minister and one-time stalwart of the ruling Zanu-PF party.