Zimbabwe: Don’t let the crocodile cheat again 28/07/2013 By zimbabweelection Leave a Comment IT IS conceivable—and we would be naive to put it more strongly—that Robert Mugabe’s reign of 33 years may at last be coming to an end. The evidence suggests that if the general and presidential elections due on July 31st were tolerably free and fair, Morgan Tsvangirai and his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) would wallop Mr Mugabe and his thuggish, incompetent and corrupt Zanu-PF. President Mugabe Last time, in 2008, the MDC won the parliamentary poll and Mr Tsvangirai comfortably defeated Mr Mugabe in the first round of the presidential race, though hamstrung by chicanery and violence. It was only after 200-odd MDC campaigners had been murdered that Mr Tsvangirai opted out of the second round, and even then Mr Mugabe was obliged to let Mr Tsvangirai and the MDC join an awkward coalition government. This time, despite sporadic violence by Zanu-PF and the efforts of the army, the police, the state-owned media, the courts, the electoral commission and the registrar of the voters’ roll, which are all in cahoots with Mr Mugabe and his party, the Zimbabwean people have a chance, however slim, of booting out their ageing despot. Although opinion polls suggest Zanu-PF still has chunks of support among the rural poor, fear of speaking out against the government probably understates the opposition to Mr Mugabe. Most people seem keen to get rid of him. He has made a mockery of the unity government, flouting every key clause in the agreement that was supposed to underpin it. He has refused to reform the army or the security service, the courts and the media, or to remove repressive laws. Prominent MDC people are frequently beaten up, put behind bars and even murdered. Yet Mr Mugabe has retained his vicious security chiefs as well as the useless central bank governor who presided over a world-beating inflation rate in 2008. Some of the MDC’s people proved to be neither angels nor geniuses in government, but an impressive MDC finance minister is credited with steadying a dollarised economy. Mr Mugabe has for too long been protected by other Africans. But hope is rising that, even though he has refused to let in United Nations or European Union (EU) monitoring teams, those being deployed by the African Union (AU) and by the Southern African Development Community (SADC), an influential 15-country South African-led club, will be more robust than they were last time round (see article). The AU team is led by Olusegun Obasanjo, a former Nigerian president who still carries weight in Africa. SADC is sending many more watchers than before. Indeed, the biggest hope for Mr Mugabe’s demise is that South Africa under Jacob Zuma may at last have had enough of the reptilian 89-year-old. Africa’s belated moment Mr Zuma’s task will be easy if Mr Tsvangirai and the MDC are allowed to win. The victors would probably draw some of the least vile Zanu-PF types into a unity government, though this time with the true winners properly in charge. Mr Mugabe may well be gently put out to grass rather than into the dock. Sadly, the old man and his thugs will probably try to bludgeon their way to a bogus victory. If they do, America and the EU should renew the targeted sanctions against prominent people in the regime that they largely lifted earlier this year as a reward for Mr Mugabe’s belated agreement to pave the way to the election by amending the constitution. And the rest of Africa should join the condemnation. Africa’s standards of governance have generally been improving. It is high time its leaders, especially Mr Zuma, felt honour-bound to help erase this blot on their continent. OTHER STORIES:
Posted on: Sun, 28 Jul 2013 10:52:25 +0000
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