Leader in The Guardian
Tuesday May 13 2008
Morgan Tsvangirai was right to decide to return to Zimbabwe to contest the second round runoff. His departure, over a month ago, to lobby the governments of southern Africa was initially a shrewd move, and did much to undermine Thabo Mbeki’s attempts to shield his embattled friend Robert Mugabe. But staying away from his homeland, when his supporters were being killed, tortured and chased out of their homes, was a different matter. Had Mr Tsvangirai spent the time instead visiting the war veterans’ victims in their hospital beds, he would have been able to keep the region’s focus on what is happening in Zimbabwe.
The leader of the Movement for Democratic Change is not going back on his own terms. He has failed to achieve a halt to the violence, a new Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), unfettered access for international observers or a peacekeeping force manned by the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC). Indeed the justice minister Patrick Chinamasa said yesterday that his country would not allow in election monitors from western countries or the UN until sanctions were lifted.
However, Mr Tsvangirai’s principal handicap is that he has not yet got an assurance about the timing of the run-off. Since he lost control of parliament, Mr Mugabe and the rump of Zanu-PF have been playing for time. The delay allowed them to chase 40,000 farm workers from their homes, kill at least 22 people and torture 900 others, according to the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights.
MDC stalwarts, like the senator and human rights activist David Coltart, say that the violence will not work. Even the massacres of 20,000 people carried out by a North Korean trained army unit in 1985 failed to deter Matabeleland from voting for the opposition, he said. Perhaps it is for this reason that Zanu-PF is still prevaricating. Mr Mugabe can not be sure that he has yet bludgeoned enough of the opposition into submission. The ZEC has yet to set a date for the second round and Zanu-PF has said it could be delayed for up to a year. The SADC must insist that the run-off happens within weeks, not months.
The MDC leader is returning with some advantages. Mr Mugabe no longer has a majority in parliament and if he goes back to ruling by decree, his orders can be annulled. In fact, the opposition is only 30 votes away from the numbers needed for impeachment. Another major task for Mr Mugabe is to find more than 200,000 votes, if he is to overturn the results of the first round. There is, still, all to play for if the run-off is held promptly. It is up to Zimbabwe’s neighbours to ensure that it is. Otherwise, they too will have blood on their hands.