Zimbabwe: Robert Mugabe refuses to give up
After seeming to totter, Zimbabwe's president now looks determined to hang on by hook or by crook
THE opposition says it has won, but Zimbabwe is holding its breath, with the official results of the presidential election still undeclared 12 days after the poll. In the meantime, Robert Mugabe is tightening the grip he seemed to have lost last week. People in his ruling ZANU-PF have been hinting at a second round; after a five-hour meeting of its top body on April 4th, the party said it would be firmly behind Mr Mugabe in the event of a run-off.
Hundreds of war veterans, who have been used in the past to bully people, marched through the streets of Harare, the capital; others began invading some of the farms still in white hands. The opposition says that dozens of its people in rural areas have been assaulted by pro-government militias. Two foreign journalists have been arrested but were freed on bail after a few days behind bars. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has asked the courts to make the electoral commission announce the results, and is accusing the authorities of wanting to impose a state of emergency.
The MDC says its presidential candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai, won outright, with 50.3% of the vote in the first round, based on results posted outside polling stations. The electoral commission acknowledged that ZANU-PF had lost its majority in Parliament. But the ruling party is demanding recounts in enough seats to reverse its loss if it were awarded them. It has also demanded a full recount of the presidential vote, though official results have not even been announced. Several election officials have been arrested, accused of undercounting votes for Mr Mugabe.
Meanwhile, Mr Tsvangirai flew to South Africa, where Jacob Zuma, the ruling party's leader, sounded friendlier than President Thabo Mbeki, with whom he is often at odds. Mr Tsvangirai also visited other neighbouring countries to drum up support. His MDC has upbraided regional leaders for their deafening silence and has called on the rest of Africa to intervene rather than wait for “dead bodies on the streets of Harare”. Zambia's president called an emergency meeting of the influential 14-country Southern African Development Community, which he chairs.
Rumours of back-room deals swirled. Some senior figures in Zimbabwe's ruling party and security forces were said to have been in contact with the opposition. Diplomats from the region were reported to be trying to persuade Mr Mugabe to step down. But some African leaders, including Jakaya Kikwete, Tanzania's president who also chairs the African Union, privately complained that the Zimbabwean president would not take their calls.
So Mr Mugabe has decided to fight on. Though the ruling party is divided, those in it who want him to go have so far been afraid to stand up to him. When Simba Makoni, a former finance minister, openly broke ranks and stood as an independent, few party bigwigs dared back him openly.
Ahead of the poll, security chiefs said they would obey only Mr Mugabe, and there were fears of a coup immediately after the elections. The top ranks of the army and police control swathes of the state apparatus and play a big part in running the country. Officials who have grown rich from Mr Mugabe's patronage have a vested interest in his staying on.
Mr Mugabe is again playing the emotive land card, with the daily Herald newspaper, a government mouthpiece, fanning rumours that farms confiscated during the government's land reforms would be returned to white farmers if the opposition won. So-called war veterans, many of them too young to have fought in the country's independence war of the 1970s, have again invaded farms in an apparently orchestrated move to punish those believed to help the opposition. According to the Commercial Farmers' Union, some 60 farmers have fled their homes in the past few days. Diehard Mugabe backers have derided the MDC's victory claims as a “provocation” and say they will fight to defend the country's supposed sovereignty.
No one knows how long the electoral commission will sit on the presidential results while a divided ZANU-PF ponders what to do. A state of emergency would mean suspending the electoral process. A run-off, if it came to that, should take place within three weeks from the date of the first election, but some suggest Mr Mugabe may postpone it for 90 days, to give his party time to flex its muscle and re-establish control over voters, especially in the countryside. In any event, the incidents of the past few days point to a blunt counter-offensive. But heavy-handed violence or massive fraud look like the only things that could now keep Mr Mugabe in power.
