Cutting Edge
By Priya Abraham
April 21st 2008
To listen to Robert Mugabe’s latest rant on western imperialism, one would think history has not shaken the 84-year-old liberator-turned-dictator of Zimbabwe.
“We need to maintain utmost vigilance in the face of vicious British machinations,” he told a crowd of thousands in Harare’s Gwanzura stadium on April 18, Zimbabwe’s Independence Day. Banners at the stadium further warned against “sell-outs” to Britain.
In reality, Mugabe is facing perhaps the strongest challenge to his power since he took over from white minority rule in 1980. In national elections held March 29—and still under dispute–Zimbabwe’s opposition won control of the nation’s 210-seat parliament, winning 107 seats to the ruling party ZANU-PF’s 97.
Mugabe has now completely lost any remaining legitimacy he held in Zimbabwe and the world. Zimbabwe’s tenacious and beleaguered opposition movement has new hope: “Don’t forget we have won,” wrote Sokwanele, a civil rights coalition, as it urged Zimbabweans to continue pressing for peaceful, democratic renewal. Under this new calculus, the question now is how long Zimbabweans will wait for Mugabe to go.
Mugabe is beyond caring what the world thinks, and that attitude rippled even in Washington circles. Just as an example, His ambassador to the United States agreed to speak at the Institute on Religion and Public Policy, on April 15, then blew off the event as reporters and others waited for his arrival. His staff made little effort to inform anyone that he was “out of town.â€
In this election, there is no doubt about the victor: in a slight but profound concession, the country’s 9,000 polling stations were each required to post their results outside. Zimbabweans and civic groups traveled from one polling station to another logging the results for themselves. In previous elections, officials tallied—and tampered with–ballots at a central counting station.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change, or MDC, also appears to have won the presidency, though Mugabe refuses to release those election results more than three weeks later. Meanwhile, in an effort to recapture the parliamentary seats his party obviously lost, Mugabe has launched a recount in 23 constituencies where the MDC is particularly popular.
With the knowledge of their victory, MDC’s leaders are beginning to sound like leaders of the U.S. civil rights movement. While Mugabe blustered about imperialist threats on Independence Day, MDC President Morgan Tsvangirai told Zimbabweans, “I cannot speak to you on the national media, but I can speak to you from my heart—that freedom comes and your voice and your vote shall be heard.”
Significantly, the election is also uniting the fractured and often weak MDC. Tsvangirai rival Arthur Mutambara, who heads MDC’s splinter faction, has backed Tsvangirai for president and said both camps would act as one body within the parliament. “Under no circumstances will we vote with Robert Mugabe,†he said. “Hell no, never, ever.”
But how long will Zimbabweans hold out for peaceful change? News media continually repeat the grim statistics: Zimbabwe’s inflation is the highest in the world while its life expectancy is the lowest, at 34 for women. One man at an election rally toted a sign with the dry self-description, “Starving billionaire.”
David Coltart is the MDC’s former shadow justice minister and now a leader within the splinter faction, and was elected March 29 as Senator for a southern constituency. On a faint and failing phone connection (lines have been especially faulty since the election), he told me he is skeptical that Zimbabwe will see a popular uprising.
For one thing, Zimbabwe does not have the same “pressure cooker†environment as Kenya, Coltart said, which is surrounded by warring and inhospitable neighbors such as Somalia and Sudan.
Secondly, “Most of our young activists have gone to Zimbabwe and South Africa and so there’s very few people within the country (for) an uprising,†Coltart said. About a quarter of Zimbabwe’s 12 million people have fled across its borders. Zimbabwe’s brutal and drawn out guerrilla war between the white government and black fighters has also left people with “little stomach” to start another armed struggle.
Even an April 15 national strike the opposition called fizzled as riot police took positions and poor Zimbabweans chose to work, desperate for any meager pay. Mugabe has awarded increasing control of the nation’s day-to-day running to his security forces and the dreaded Central Intelligence Organization. In a familiar tactic, security forces and youth squads are now rounding up and beating opposition supporters in a new crackdown, further feeding tensions.
Despite its obvious and clear victory, the fight still is not over for Zimbabwe’s opposition. Instead of finding relief in this election, the MDC is in its usual position of battling Mugabe’s illegal maneuvers. Tsvangirai would like Africa and the world to intervene in Zimbabwe more strongly, as it did when Kenya’s election last year came under violent dispute. In the meantime, Zimbabweans are back to waiting for deliverance from their old and wily liberator.
Priya Abraham is Communications Director at the Institute on Religion and Public Policy.