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Getting rid of Mugabe
The Telegraph (UK)
February 09, 2007

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2007/02/09/dl0902.xml

In more than a quarter of a century in power, Robert Mugabe has turned one of Africa's most promising countries into a basket case. As Peta Thornycroft reports today from Harare, inflation has reached such a pitch that a school teacher cannot afford the bus fare to and from work. The black middle class has fled – the Reserve Bank estimates that one million of them might be in Britain – and those Zimbabweans who remain are witnessing the disintegration of public services, from hospitals to water-treatment plants and power stations.

Yet Mr Mugabe remains in power, calculating that the privileges afforded the top echelons of the security forces and the ruling party, Zanu-PF, will not only keep him there until his term ends next year but, through a constitutional amendment, could extend his rule to 2010.

Over the past seven years of accelerating political oppression and economic decline, it has become clear that the deus ex machina will not come from abroad. Britain, the former metropolitan power, fears being accused of neo-colonialism. South Africa, which could apply powerful leverage, disguises its revolutionary sympathy with Mr Mugabe by proclaiming the (illusory) benefits of "quiet diplomacy". Saddest of all, the domestic opposition Movement for Democratic Change has been weakened by factional division.

If, then, the president is to be removed before 2010, it is more likely to be through a palace coup than foreign intervention or electoral defeat. The most obvious instigator is Emmerson Mnangagwa, a veteran guerrilla fighter and brutal former security minister who has fallen out with the president and opposes plans to extend his term beyond 2008. The catalyst for a coup would be his uniting disaffected elements of Zanu-PF and mid-ranking members of the security forces. Given Mr Mnangagwa's fearsome record, the result would hardly be sweetness and light.

But it would at least promise less crazy economic management than that offered by the octogenarian ogre who currently occupies State House.

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