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Mugabe Clings to Power

Tension Mounts in Zimbabwe as Election Results Delayed

The post-election euphoria of the Zimbabwean opposition has died down as the government delays the release of the results of the presidential election. It looks increasingly likely that President Robert Mugabe will succeed in clinging to power -- yet again.

The old fox took his time -- plenty of time. No photos, no interviews, none of the usual gestures of power. He bided his time and remained out of sight. Zimbabwe seemed to be without a leader.

It was not until five days after the March 29 parliamentary and presidential elections that President Robert Mugabe appeared in public again. On Thursday of last week, he was shown on state television with foreign election observers as they prepared to leave the country.

The TV scenes looked harmless, but they were also a signal to his henchmen to take up the reins of power again. Uniformed soldiers were deployed in the streets of Harare. They searched the offices of the opposition party Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and several foreign journalists were taken from their beds in a guesthouse and detained.

Throughout the country, instructions went out to the police to closely monitor the movements of whites. The government newspaper The Herald had announced that white farmers, who had been evicted from their land by the Mugabe regime, were already lurking at the borders, "anticipating taking over the farms in the event of an MDC victory."

Robert Mugabe, 84, was back -- and the country was back to business as usual.

False reports had been circulating in the capital Harare for days. Media representatives, diplomats, opposition politicians and the secret service had all had plenty of time to pass on the latest rumors: Mugabe, by now one of the longest-serving leaders in Africa, had left the country; the head of the air force -- one of the most powerful men in the country -- had committed suicide; the ruling ZANU-PF party was deeply divided; Mugabe had already admitted defeat within his family circle and approached his challenger Morgan Tsvangirai, but was still contemplating how he could step down gracefully.

In the luxury Meikles Hotel and in Harare’s upmarket golf club, members of the press, diplomats and functionaries of the MDC party excitedly discussed the idea of a possible change of government. Last Wednesday, the general secretary of the MDC, Tendai Biti, even declared Tsvangirai, 55, to be the new president, saying he had won 50.3 percent of the votes. The state electoral commission had already awarded victory in the parliamentary election to the MDC.

But with the intervention of the security forces, the celebratory mood quickly gave way to a hangover. The news quickly made the rounds that Tsvangirai didn’t have an absolute majority and that a run-off election would be held. And on Friday evening, functionaries of Mugabe's ZANU-PF party cast doubt on the opposition’s victory in the parliamentary election as well.

The government has yet to release the presidential election results and the MDC has asked the country's High Court to force publication of the results. However, a lawyer for Zimbabwe's electoral commission said Wednesday it would be "dangerous" for the High Court to order the results released. Mugabe is thought to be trying to delay the announcement of the results to give him time to prepare for a likely run-off against Tsvangirai.

For ordinary Zimbabweans, the awakening from the post-election euphoria was not as painful -- they had been suspicious of the MDC’s victory fanfares. There had been no joyful parades or victory celebrations, not even among MDC supporters. Zimbabweans have had bitter experiences with elections too often in the past. Once before, in 2002, Tsvangirai led in the polls right up to the elections -- but in the end Mugabe held on to power.

“The people no longer believe that a change could happen,” says political scientist Lovemore Madhuku of the National Constitutional Assembly, a group which is critical of the government. Madhuku is very much in favor of Tsvangirai as president. But even as he soberly goes through the numbers and analyzes the situation in his modest office on the edge of Harare, it appears that he’s given up all hope.

Last year Madhuku was captured by Mugabe’s cronies at a demonstration on the city outskirts. He suffered a beating, a couple of days in jail and a broken arm. “Mugabe will manipulate a run-off election as well, and of course he’ll stay in power,” he says.

The election on the previous Saturday itself hardly counted as free and fair. Mugabe had 9 million ballots printed -- for just under 6 million eligible voters. The voting rolls included names of people who had long been dead -- including Ian Smith, the former prime minister of Rhodesia, as Zimbabwe was known before becoming independent in 1980, who died in 2007. The official records also supposedly displayed 8,500 eligible voters for an uninhabited area on the outskirts of Harare.

One outraged soldier described how secret service members watched over soldiers’ shoulders in barracks as they marked their ballots. Afterwards the ballot boxes were taken away by helicopter.

To ensure that the electoral charade would gain some semblance of international respectability, the regime allowed in election observers from such staunch democracies as Russia, China and Iran, supported by observers from selected African countries.

As a result of their precautions, the president and his military could feel very confident about the situation. The army remained in their barracks, soldiers were allowed to take vacations, and there was no additional police presence in the capital. Even Harare’s street vendors, who fearlessly hawk eggs, newspapers, glasses and steering wheels in the middle of dangerous four-lane streets, went about their business as usual. It didn't exactly look like a revolution.

The president knows his country and his citizens. His period of rule has worn the population down to the point that, for the time being, elections and the opposition pose little danger to him.

Mugabe led Zimbabwe to independence 28 years ago and in 1983 he carried out a bloody campaign against his opponents in Matabeleland. He has meddled with nearly every election. Recently his economic mismanagement has led to record inflation at the unbelievable rate of 150,000 percent per year. A pizza currently costs 300 million Zimbabwean dollars, a beer 50 million.

“Of course everyone wants a change. But life is strenuous, and the people are tired,” says Eva Nkomo, a journalist. “And besides, for us violent conflict -- perhaps differently from in Kenya -- doesn’t necessarily run in the blood.”