August 2, 2013 5:34 pm
Mugabe, the ageing ‘master’, delivers knockout blow to rival
On the eve of Zimbabwe’s crucial election this week, President Robert Mugabe was in jovial spirits as he joked about his adversarial relationship with Morgan Tsvangirai, his nemesis of the past decade.
“Although we boxed each other, it was a friendly boxing and not as hostile as before,” he said in reference to how the two combined in a dysfunctional unity government.
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IN AFRICA
For four years, the pair have sparred repeatedly while in the administration, which was set up after violent and disputed 2008 elections, as Mr Tsvangirai took the role of prime minister – at best a middleweight to the heavyweight president.
But now, Mr Mugabe, who despite approaching his 90th birthday remains Zimbabwe’s most formidable and resilient politician, looks set to deliver a knockout blow. Amid widespread allegations of electoral fraud, he and his Zanu-PF party appear on course to record crushing victories in this week’s parliamentary and presidential poll.
Final results have yet to be announced, but Zanu-PF has already gained a clear majority, with more than 130 out of 210 parliamentary seats, to the 48 garnered by Mr Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change. Zanu-PF officials predict that Mr Mugabe will win up to 75 per cent of the presidential vote.
Mr Tsvangirai has branded the poll a farce, declaring it null and void, as the MDC alleges it was a stolen election.
Other organisations, diplomats and observers have lent credence to the MDC’s claims, with concerns ranging from the disenfranchisement of up to 1m voters and the printing of more than 8m ballots for 6.4m registered voters, to people being turned away from polling stations, particularly in urban areas, where the MDC has traditionally drawn its support.
Zanu-PF dismisses the allegations. Western election monitors were barred, but observers from the African Union and Southern African Development Community have given the vote qualified approval, saying it was peaceful and free, with the latter calling on all parties to accept the results.
This call was rejected by the MDC. But Mr Tsvangirai, a former union leader who has spent more than a decade battling the autocratic Zanu-PF regime, appears shell-shocked. He has been largely silent since Thursday, as Mr Mugabe – who will be 94 if he completes another five-year term – has once again outmanoeuvred his rival.
“He is the master and anybody who wants to retain power needs to come for lessons,” says Tawanda Chimhini, director of the Electoral Resource Centre, a non-government organisation that has been promoting youth voter education. He says that while many focused on the need for a peaceful process in light of the violence that blighted elections in 2002 and 2008, Zanu-PF “outplayed the MDC”, with the alleged manipulation carried out long before observers set foot in the country.
“This election was not about violence and intimidation, it was about [voter] figures,” says Mr Chimhini, whose father lost his seat as an MDC parliamentarian. “It’s like being handed a bag and being told there’s $100 in it. Then, you never check and spend a day watching it, but there’s no money in the bag.”
Given the media bias enjoyed by Zanu-PF, its dominance of state institutions and its access to tools of patronage, including allegations that revenue from the opaque diamond industry was used to fund its campaign, the MDC had always said the playing field was far from level. Its lacklustre performance in government had also eaten into its credibility. But still the party agreed to enter a process put together in a matter of weeks after Mr Mugabe set the poll date for July 31. Zanu-PF “set the trap”, said Phillian Zamchiya, a Zimbabwean academic. “[Mr Mugabe] has remained a Machiavellian type of leader.”
Now Zanu-PF and its ageing leader – who have run the country since independence in 1980 – hold the keys to Zimbabwe’s future. “There is a real fear that Zimbabwe will go back to where it was before 2008,” said Mr Chimhini.
Back then, shops were empty, hyper-inflation soared to ridiculous levels as the central bank issued Z$100,000bn notes that bore no value, and thousands of young Zimbabweans fled across borders in search of work. The economic chaos was largely the result of Zanu-PF’s land reform programme, which led to the seizure of white-owned farms and political instability.
The economy stabilised after the adoption of the US dollar as currency in 2009, but a fragile recovery has lost momentum, with growth expected to slow from 10.5 per cent in 2011 to 3.4 per cent this year. Industry is estimated to be operating at well below 50 per cent capacity, unemployment is rampant, infrastructure is in a dire state and the government is so hard up that it had to freeze spending to find the $132m needed to fund the election.
Yet Mr Mugabe is unapologetic, and Zanu-PF’s contentious indigenisation programme, under which it wants all foreign companies – from mining houses to banks and manufacturers – to be 51 per cent owned by black Zimbabweans, was the cornerstone of his campaign.
For many business chiefs, the result is a grim outlook. “Indigenisation is a catastrophe for the country,” said one. “We had a very substantive bounce, but it was a temporary fix. . . Nobody created the conditions for the economy to flourish. There’s no investment in the economy generating activity.”
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The blatant hate campaign against Mugabe, and their blind support for Tsvangirai, led the AU to agree with him (Mugabe) that he was the victim of western neo-colonial interference.
Tsvangirai and his MDC party should assume at least an equidistant position between the AU and the west if they want to rule Zimbabwe. Tsvangirai’s recent undiplomatic outburst against the AU Chairperson Ms. Dlamini-Zuma does not endear him to the organisation, which is still populated by colonial era leaders.
About a decade ago Mugabe ordered farmers to stop growing crops in order to set the stage for expropriation of white farm owners. His blatantly racist policies caused widespread famine with at the time half the population facing food shortages and starvation. In the end Mugabe's great enemies from the west themselves provided the funds and means (by shipping in tons of aid) to stop the famine and keep hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans alive. Of course tons of money and food vanished into Mugabe's repressive corrupt apparatus.
Robert Mugabe's tools are fear and starvation. There's nothing masterful about brute force and institutionalizing malnutrition for political reasons. To make him out to be anything but a dread tyrant is a slap in the face of so many who have fought his regime and its brutalities through the decades. A quick google of two terms: Zimbabwe and famine will make the case.
This election was a farce, here is someone who ought to face a judge for his crimes. That he and his party still win elections is a testament that Zimbabwe is akin to Myanmar and Sri Lanka.
It's a pity that many in the ANC still see Robert Mugabe as a comrade in the struggle against western influence. But then again many in the ANC like Julius Malema support Mugabe and would like to expropriate white farmers in South Africa as well. As long as the SA government supports Zanu PF, plus ca change.
http://www.bdlive....e-scoop-on-zanu-pf