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The power game may go on but the end is near
Andrew Meldrum, The Observer
April 06, 2008

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/06/zimbabwe

Robert Mugabe strikes back. The canny strategist snatches the initiative from the opposition and diplomats, surrounds himself with hard-line, thuggish supporters, asserts that neither he nor his party were defeated in the elections and vows to fight on. This is the Mugabe that the world knows, iron-willed and combative.

It was with disbelief that I heard he was negotiating a quiet retirement, with amnesty. It is with a grim sense of the familiar I saw him send his war veterans back on to the streets of Harare, shaking his fist and showing that he was still in control.

The arrest of five foreign journalists in the past week is a message to the media that have been trumpeting his imminent departure that he is still in control. It is also a warning of a wider crackdown to come.

The cells of Harare Central are the same ones where I and many others have spent time. Cramped, filthy, stinking, with a hole in the floor as a toilet for the 15 men in a cell for eight. The journalists are barefoot and chilly in the dungeon-like cubicles. Most likely they will find their fellow prisoners - arrested on charges of robbery, embezzlement, assault or murder - thoughtful about politics.

Mugabe's trusted generals know that if he is granted an amnesty for human rights atrocities, it will not be extended to them. They have decided to battle on. To continue looting the economy and stashing the proceeds in Malaysian bank accounts.

In the event of a run-off - Mugabe could still declare himself winner of the first round - he will decide the terms. Almost certainly he will do away with democratic niceties such as allowing international observers to watch the counting and posting results. The opposition captured proof of the first-round votes with mobile phones, significantly reducing Mugabe's ability to rig the results.

Add in violence from Mugabe's marauding war vets and youth brigades and it is possible that Mugabe could continue his ruinous rule. It all seems depressingly familiar.

But Thabo Mbeki and other African leaders will be hard pressed to endorse any extension of Mugabe's rule as legitimate. In recent years Mugabe has enjoyed that support from fellow African leaders and if he loses that, it will be much more difficult for him.

Mugabe has grabbed some more time for himself but, make no mistake, it will be the final period of his rule. Ordinary Zimbabweans, having tasted the possibility of unseating Mugabe, may be more spirited in their opposition.

This is the exciting challenge of covering Zimbabwe as a journalist. Even from a distance it is compelling to follow the terrifying roller-coaster ride from the triumph of democracy to the gut-churning drop to dictatorship. Mugabe is throwing in a few more turns, but the end is in sight.

*Andrew Meldrum was the Observer's correspondent in Zimbabwe from 1980 to May 2003, when he was abducted by state security officers and expelled.

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