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Zimbabwe's Comrade Bob find himself behind the curve of history


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By John Metzler
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM

Friday, April 1, 2005

UNITED NATIONS — The setting is stage managed. A long serving African dictator is holding yet another famously rigged election while the opposition is muffled and the world looks the other way.

Gerrymandering, intimidation, and a bag of political tricks pretty much assures that the Parliamentary elections will go according to script. Perhaps in the short run. But Zimbabwe’s President Comrade Robert Mugabe is nervously facing the global rumblings for democracy and widening American oversight. Comrade Bob knows that his old magic may not play well beyond the confines of his country — and even there, for how long?

Mugabe’s misrule and malfeasance have turned this resource-rich land, abundant in agricultural potential, from a southern African breadbasket into a pitiful basket case. Beyond the systematic political repression there been a creeping socialization which has crippled one of the continents former food exporters. Zimbabwe's incomes are about half what they were at formal independence from Britain in 1980.

The height of horrible irony for once bountiful Zimbabwe — the South Africa based Famine Early Warning Network warns that nearly six million people out of a population of 11.5 million desperately need food aid. Famine stalks the land. That’s one of the many reasons that three million Zimbabweans have fled their country, mostly to neighboring South Africa.

Though Mugabe’s ruling Zimbabwe African National Union/Patriotic Front (ZANU) political party goes through the charade of fair elections, few international observers take that claim seriously. Electoral observers from the United States, the Commonwealth and the European Union were barred. The United Nations sent no observers either despite lingering fears that the voting will hardly be free and fair.

The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has contested a number of past elections and done surprisingly well despite having to confront Mugabe’s less than subtle intimidation, the corruption of ZANU cronies, and criticism from the state run media. The one opposition newspaper The Daily News was shuttered by Mugabe’s thugs a few years ago. Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai faces constant harassment.

In the current elections, 150 parliamentary seats are up for grabs — 120 of them to be elected while President Mugabe will appoint the remaining 30. According to the Economist “Few open- minded doubt that if the poll were to be free and fair , the MDC we would romp home. Despite massive intimidation and vote rigging in the last general election, the newly formed party won 57 seats with 47 percent of the vote cast, against 62 seats for Mugabe’s ruling ZANU-PF.”

In this election, the opposition MDC has scored surprisingly well, especially in the capital Harare (former Salisbury) and the second city Bulawayo.

Though the official election outcome has been decided by Mugabe and his minions, that may not be the end of the contest. Mugabe now 81, has ruled since 1980 — his ZANU-PF party is divided but held together by the glue of corruption and near absolute power. Mugabe now in the Autumn of his rule, still needs a two-thirds majority to change the constitution and appoint a successor.

While Washington may have less political clout in the situation, clearly Britain, ex-Rhodesia’s former colonial power, and neighboring South Africa hold trump cards.

Though South Africa has long coddled and condoned Mugabe’s misrule, the bottom line is beginning to change as Zimbabwe teeters near economic collapse. Refugees are fleeing to and often illegally sneaking into South Africa. Even the South African left-wing trade unions — fearing job competition from cheap labor — called for truly free elections in their neighbor to the north.

The recent and exhilarating democratic revolutions which have swept Georgia, Ukraine, Kirgizstan prove politically distinctly different cases but they hold the common thread of rife corruption, the arrogant abuse of power, and falling living standards. What seemingly small but single issue may trigger Zimbabwe’s movement for true democracy remains yet to be seen.

John J. Metzler is a U.N. correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com.




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