By guest author, Miles Tendi
I have been following Zimbabwe’s 2008 elections closely. My emotions have mutated with alacrity, checking news sites more often than I should, and receiving calls and messages from family and political contacts in Zimbabwe. In the past 72 hours I have gone from ‘Robert Mugabe and ZANU PF will win’ to ‘it will be a landslide victory for the opposition’ to ‘Mugabe has already fled the country fearing retribution’ to ‘the army has ordered the electoral commission to declare Mugabe the winner’ and now, my present mood and thinking is that a lot of people are going to be disappointed by the looming result.
The two things that stand out about Mugabe’s political pattern is his consistency, and that he is too wily and resolute in power to be swept away in a pseudo democratic election. Zimbabwe is better off without him at the helm but we must temper our emotions and stop our imagination from running wild. Mugabe has been in difficult situations before and wriggled out of them amazingly. ‘Jesus rose from the dead once but I have come back from the dead several times’, he once boasted. The probability is high that Mugabe can come back from the dead once again via an electoral system he largely designed. I would not bet against it. This is my position now, after what has been a rollercoster 72 hours of miraculous flip-flopping on my part.
If Mugabe does not scrape to the most narrow of presidential election victories, I foresee a run off between Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai. This suits Mugabe better than facing Simba Makoni in a runoff because if there is anything ZANU PF and Zimbabwe's top security officials are united on, its that
Tsvangirai must not rule. Those comprising the status quo stand to lose their ill gotten wealth and will be prosecuted for crimes in office if Tsvangirai prevails.
ZANU PF was divided in this election but it will put its differences aside and rally behind Mugabe forcefully if he is to face Tsvangirai. Mugabe risked damaging defections if he had faced Makoni in a run off. A Mugabe-Makoni run off would have presented Makoni’s secret and powerful backers in ZANU PF, such as Solomon Mujuru, with the opportune moment to abandon Mugabe in favour of Makoni. Mugabe will also find it easier to marshall ZANU PF’s rank and file to campaign for him against Tsvangirai as opposed to Makoni who has many sympathisers in the ruling party.
ZANU PF will leave no stone unturned in a Mugabe-Tsvangirai face off. ZANU PF was complacent in the rural areas and some of its rural party structures were not as formidable as they normally are. It underestimated the extent to which Tsvangirai would make significant in roads into its rural strongholds. The free political space Tsvangirai enjoyed in the rural areas during this campaign will be gone in the run off. A run off in 3 weeks time also allows ZANU PF some time to tinker its rigging machinery.
True to form, Mugabe has not uttered a single word or even been seen in public since the election started. He will speak when the cement has set. Mugabe is not out of it yet. Write him off at your own peril.
Miles Tendi is a Zimbabwean and a research student at Oxford University
For all you citizens of Zimbabwe who deride Robert Mugabe, where were you all when he was fighting to End RACIST WHITE RULE in Zimbabwe and South Africa. In the words of another english man.Cecil Rhodes who originated the racist 'land grabs' to which Zimbabwe's current miseries can ultimately be traced. It was Rhodes who in 1887 told the House Of Assembly in Capetown,South Africa that 'the native is to be treated as a child and denied the franchise.We must adopt a system on despotism in our relations with the barbarians of Southern Africa... I personally prefer land to niggers
Posted by: Renato | Wednesday, 02 April 2008 at 10:58 AM
One issue which your good article does not cover is a Mugabe VRS Tsvangarai+Makoni run-off, with Makoni throwing his weight behind Tsvangarai in return for a senior role in a future government.
Do you beleive this is a viable scenario?
Posted by: PeteG | Wednesday, 02 April 2008 at 11:00 AM
A run off is the end of Mugabe truth is the guy only has about 30% support and has cheated in most other areas to get to about 43%, knowing the demographics of Zimbabwe his influence only exists in the the remotest of areas where people are easily cowed into believing Britain is about to recolonise. MDC now know all rigging tricks it will now be impossible. Simba Makoni can only just Morgan Tsvangirai if Mugabe wins his mince meat, its over for the guy masses sense change an they'll finish him off and he knows it.
Posted by: Sam Zoc | Wednesday, 02 April 2008 at 11:29 AM
Renato,
Do you have land in Zimbabwe? Do you have what to work it with? In that case what is a ZANU-PF slave like you typing on the computer? Get your airplane tickets! (but be ready to wait, I heard there are huge lines at the counters :)))
If the above doesn't apply to you, learn more about Zimbabwe than just Marxist rhetoric learned in school.. like try learning what life is like in Zimbabwe right now. History is dead. The pple in Zimbabwe are dying. See the difference?
Posted by: B | Wednesday, 02 April 2008 at 12:14 PM
B, racist big man Ian Smith - you know that insane bastard who boasted... ("the more Africans we Rhodesians killed, the happier we Rhodesians were") was also fond of pretending to himself that it was all just 'Marxist rhetoric' right up until the Nazi got his arse kicked by Mugabe and the Zimbabwean people. Try to learn from history rather than spin it.
Posted by: Tshwane | Wednesday, 02 April 2008 at 08:28 PM
Looks like events are headed towards this article`s prediction. A runoff is all but here. Lets just hope everything except Mugabe winning the runoff comes true.
Posted by: james makaya | Thursday, 03 April 2008 at 03:09 PM