|
Back to Index
This article participates on the following special index pages:
2008 harmonised elections - Index of articles
Zimbabwe
in limbo as Mugabe fights back
Stella Mapenzauswa, Reuters
April 10, 2008
http://africa.reuters.com/country/ZW/news/usnL09228881.html
For a few days,
many Zimbabweans dared to believe President Robert Mugabe's rule
was drawing to a close; now they fear he will cling to power, reviving
ruthless tactics used to cow his opponents a decade ago.
Twelve days after an
election which saw the ruling ZANU-PF lose control of parliament
for the first time since 1980, hopes are fading for a change from
Mugabe, who critics blame for driving his once-prosperous nation
into economic catastrophe.
No presidential result
has been announced, an opposition legal bid to reveal it is dragging
through the courts and ZANU-PF is clearly preparing for a Mugabe-Tsvangirai
runoff.
Meanwhile Mugabe is deploying
the same independence war veterans and youth militias who helped
him overcome a strong MDC challenge in a parliamentary vote in 2000
and the last presidential poll in 2002.
The mainly-white Commercial
Farmers Union says war veterans, used by ZANU-PF against its members
in 2000, have since the weekend evicted more than 60 farmers, accused
by Mugabe of bankrolling the MDC.
"What the war veterans
are doing is preparing for a re-run because Mugabe realises that
an announcement that he has won outright will not be believed,"
said political analyst Lovemore Madhuku.
"You will get the
war veterans again on the warpath. If there is a runoff the war
veterans would make it difficult for some people to turn out to
vote."
"They might
not beat up people the way they did last time, but there will be
a lot of intimidation," said Madhuku, a critic of Mugabe and
chairman of pressure group National
Constitutional Assembly.
Growing
anger
Despite growing anger
over a deepening economic crisis that has brought the world's worst
hyper-inflation and shortages of basic commodities, fuel, water
and electricity, Mugabe has successfully used state security agents
to suppress any attempts at big street protests over the past eight
years.
Analysts believe memories
of those often brutal reprisals have stopped Zimbabweans going onto
the streets over the past week despite rising frustration over the
election stalemate.
The mobile phone network,
a key link between Zimbabweans at home and abroad, has been stretched
to the limit over the past week as they send SMS messages venting
their frustration.
"Rigging machine
still down. Our technicians are working flat out to rectify the
problem. Please keep waiting," reads one spoof message.
Although analysts have
largely excluded an outbreak of violence similar to that which engulfed
Kenya after December's disputed election, some believe prospects
of another five years of Mugabe's rule might just tip Zimbabweans
over the edge.
"It is quite disappointing
and a bizarre situation where anticipation around a possible political
transition that would have marked a watershed moment for Zimbabwe
has turned into frustration," said political analyst Chris
Maroleng.
"My concern is that
this frustration should not be turned into anger which would result
in the electorate taking matters into their own hands."
State
of emergency
"This is the sort
of provocation that ZANU-PF and Mugabe are looking at in order to
declare what you could describe as a state of emergency and really
close down the limited democratic space that we have witnessed in
recent weeks," said Maroleng, a researcher at the Institute
of Security Studies in South Africa.
There are also fears
of apathy if Zimbabweans despair of change and lose their appetite
to vote in the expected runoff between Mugabe and Tsvangirai.
Even according to the
opposition's own estimates, Tsvangirai only won the March 29 presidential
vote by a whisker. Independent and ruling party projections suggest
he was just short of an outright majority.
Tsvangirai needs every
vote he can get in a runoff and might try to encourage millions
of emigrants, who missed the first vote, to come home this time,
encouraged by the MDC showing.
Rights groups critical
of Mugabe are trying to keep morale high and prepare the population
for battle.
"Did we really expect
that after our victory Robert Mugabe would step forward like a gentleman
and congratulate Morgan Tsvangirai before handing over power?"
said pressure group Solidarity.
"This is not what
Robert Mugabe will do. He will struggle to the end, that is in his
nature. None of this changes the fact that the majority of people
in our country voted for change and nor does it change the fact
that we have won." While the political deadlock continues,
Zimbabwe is unlikely to see the desperately-needed foreign aid that
many had hoped would start flowing after the election.
"If we had seen
a comfortable and tidy election with a new parliament being elected
with good support, I think the aid would have come, but the aid
is not going to come while we have such a mess to look at,"
said independent economic analyst John Robertson.
"The outlook is
very, very bleak now because we will attract no new investment and
we will lose what's left of our skills base. Our infrastructure
is collapsing ... It all adds up to considerably more difficulty
down the line," he said.
Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.
TOP
|
