Zimbabwe Information Center in North America
A project of the North American Coalition for a Free Zimbabwe (NACFREEZ)
MDC
By Stanford G. Mukasa
Letter from America
January 28, 2008
March elections in Zimbabwe are a bridge to nowhere
To all intents and purposes the elections slated for March 29 have effectively assured the process will be rigged in favor of the Robert Mugabe regime.
Mugabe has pulled a fast one on the opposition movement. He has played one of his many tricks and is probably laughing all the way to the bank. As some people would say: Mugabe has taken the opposition MDC to the cleaners and left them high and dry. Yet this should not surprise anyone. Mugabe is like a leopard that will not change its spots. Some people were beginning to think that, by making some concessions to the MDC during the talks, Mugabe was softening or buckling under pressure. Mugabe has always had a crafty agenda. He is in politics for his survival. He has no other interests but his own.
As I warned in my previous posts, the rigging of elections by Mugabe started many months ago, even as he was pretending to be negotiating with the MDC.
For example, Mugabe has not released to the opposition movement for review the key instruments in any elections, that is, the voters roll and the delimitation commission report. The opposition movement has no way of auditing the voters roll. It is suspected from gleaned samples that over one million names in the voter registry are fraudulent.
Also, the delimitation commission’s report spells out the new constituencies. Yet this important report has not been made available to the key stakeholders in the elections, notably the MDC. Without sufficient knowledge, how can anyone decide where to stand as a candidate for elections?
In his crafty plans Mugabe hastily dissolved parliament and has set February 8 as nomination day. This gives the MDC barely two weeks to find where the constituencies are and to vet candidates for each constituency. ZANUPF already has advance information to give it a cruising advantage over the MDC.
Mugabe’s strategy here is to disqualify as many MDC candidates as possible on the nomination day. Each MDC candidate for the election will be vetted with a fine tooth comb by Mugabe’s officials. These cronies will try their best to find every reason, no matter how trivial , to disqualify the opposition candidates. ZANUPF candidates will not go through the same fire hoops.
Part of Mugabe’s rigging strategy involves cherry picking cheerleaders from the so called friendly countries to observe the elections. The United States, Britain and the European Union will be barred from sending observers and monitors. Talk of biting the hand that feeds you! The United States and the European Union are the largest contributors of humanitarian aid to Zimbabwe. Yet they are not considered friendly enough to observe the elections.
However, it does not make any difference whether MDC participates or does not participate because the die is cast. Neither does it matter whether the MDC leadership have reunited. The elections will not be different from previous elections, especially since 2000.
The talks between MDC and ZANUPF were no more than a façade for Mugabe trying to buy time. If all those concessions by ZANUPF, and leaked to the public, were too good to be true, they certainly were.
After the elections no recognition of the outcome will be forthcoming from the international community. The economic meltdown and the state of dilapidation of the country’s infrastructure will continue. There will be no investments, no resumption of non humanitarian aid from the west or international institutions. Life will continue to be as miserable and pathetic as it is now.
The elections will, in fact be a bridge to nowhere. They will not bring anything positive to the embattled Zimbabweans. In fact the elections will be a perpetuation of the status quo.
Robert Mugabe and his cronies have too much at stake to lose the elections. They have committed so many crimes and have looted so much public resources that the consequences of losing elections are simply too ghastly for them to contemplate.
Mugabe and his cronies have a death wish. At this point in their lives, their crimes are simply too heinous and too criminal for them to ever think of reforming or rehabilitating themselves into citizens who respect democracy or basic human rights. They now live in the shadowy world of evil and crime where they have established a permanent residency.
But at the age of 84 Mugabe knows he simply cannot maintain his hard-line posture indefinitely.
If Abraham Lincoln were alive today he would probably say: Mugabe can fool all Zimbabweans some of the time. Mugabe can also fool some Zimbabweans all the time. But Mugabe cannot fool all the Zimbabweans all the time. His lie and deception, his ruthlessness will all come to a crashing end. Mugabe is very much aware that sooner than later he will have to step down either voluntarily, through death or incapacitation, no matter how often he rigs the elections to ensure his victory.
He is now the oldest head of state on the continent of Africa. And he knows that he is living on borrowed time.
There can be no doubt that at this point Mugabe has started preparing for his departure. Much as he would like to stay forever through rigged elections Mugabe knows there are forces that are growing in strength that he will not be able to control as he apparently does now.
Like a cornered criminal Mugabe will resist with all the strength and force at his command. But in the end he will be fighting a losing battle. Booker T Washington once said you can't hold a man down without staying down with him. Nowhere can this be as prophetic as in Zimbabwe.
Mugabe has resources, energy, and time to keep Zimbabweans oppressed. But in the end what has he gained other than international condemnation? His reputation, if ever he had any, as a freedom fighter for independence has gone down the drain.
Any integrity, respect or dignity he might claim to have had are now trashed in the dustbins of history. He may have a multimillion dollar mansion. He may travel in a luxurious Mercedes Benz. He may have all the riches in the world. But he has traded his soul to the Devil. Deep down inside he is a miserable wreck.
As he looks around, Mugabe is now surrounded by the stench of the dismal and pathetic world he has created for Zimbabweans. But he cannot remove himself from that abysmal world. He has to stay there to keep the Zimbabweans in that stench, although thousands are managing to skip the country.
In staying Mugabe will forever be constantly reminded of his cruelty and treachery to innocent Zimbabweans. There are reports Mugabe sometimes wakes up in the middle of night with haunting memories of the Zimbabwean tragedy that he has created.
Mugabe lives in a Zimbabwe that has
No fuel
No food
No economy
No money
No employment
No economic growth
No industry
No viable economic, social and industrial infrastructure
The irony of it all is Zimbabwe has had the best rains in many decades, yet the country’s water supply problems are escalating because of very poor water management infrastructure.
It appears Mugabe’s game plan is to get just a little more time to decide on his successor. By rigging the elections next March Mugabe wants the flexibility to decide who will succeed him, knowing very well that none of his cronies is electable.
There is a possibility that Mugabe will groom his successor and at some point, Mugabe will have to think seriously about stepping down before he is overtaken by events that may well be beyond his control.
Reports of a possible split within ZANUPF may have served as a warning to Mugabe that he cannot maintain his iron fist rule on ZANUPF forever.
Where does the opposition movement go from here?
The dilemma for the MDC is that its commitment to non violence, operating within the laws of the country has become its major stumbling block. How can the MDC be non violent and respect the laws of the country when Mugabe does not respect his own laws?
How can the MDC negotiate a peaceful and nonviolent change of power with a dictator? MDC supporters have been arrested, beaten and harassed even when they were operating within the law. Notice the latest incident where, even after the magistrate had given them permission to hold a rally, MDC supporters were beaten by the police. Their crime was to simply walk to the place where the magistrate had directed they could hold their rally.
MDC lives in a damned- if- you-do and damned –if- you- do- not world. An MDC member or official can expect severe beating from the police just for being a member of the opposition. Police will always find a crime to attach to the supporters.
In one situation police arrested MDC supporters. But took a long time agonizing what crime to charge them with!
So where does MDC go from here? This is exactly the historic question that Vladimir Lenin, the founder of the Soviet Union brand of communism asked at the turn of last century.
It is out of the question to expect MDC to turn to violence because this will give Mugabe the excuse he has been looking for to destroy the opposition movement. He will easily unleash his savage thugs in their desperate bid to wipe out MDC supporters and claim Mugabe was trying to quell violence by the MDC.
As I said earlier, the question of whether MDC should or should not participate in elections is no longer significant. The rules of elections have been violated and they lie in ruins. The March elections will be conducted under Mugabe’s rules.
The fact that Mugabe has now scuttled not only the letter and spirit of the talks with MDC but has also resorted to rigging elections means that the process for elections is now flawed and the outcome will no gain any international recognition.
MDC has two options.
The first option is to boycott the elections... This option will send a strong message that the elections cannot be free nor fair. Mugabe’s regime will not get the legitimacy they are so fervently seeking and hoping for.
The second option is to participate under protest in the elections. If, as expected, MDC loses, the international community will not grant Mugabe any legitimacy on the grounds that the process was flawed.
Either way nothing will change for the better in Zimbabwe. The elections will have been another milestone on the road to a failed state.
It stands to reason that the two options above will not address Lenin’s historical question; what is to be done?
MDC will have to look for non violent means of putting pressure on Mugabe.
Zimbabweans have a powerful weapon in mass demonstrations as well as other civil disobedience campaigns.
This will be as good a time as any to launch the civil disobedience campaign, whether MDC participates or does not participate in the elections.