Article
from
The Boston Globe
The future of African democracy is at risk this weekend when Zimbabwe''s people vote on the despotic rule of 78-year-old President Robert Gabriel Mugabe. Opinion polls show overwhelming support for Morgan Tsvangirai, his 50-year-old opponent. But Mugabe has been using thugs, paramilitary legions, police, and soldiers to attack backers of Tsvangirai and to intimidate those who prefer free and fair elections.
Without a level playing field, it is impossible to predict whether voters will venture to the polls. A high turnout will almost certainly result in a victory for Tsvangirai and his Movement for Democratic Change. But even if the voters favor Tsvangirai, no one knows how blatantly Mugabe and his cronies will try to fake the final count and simply steal the election.
Mugabe and his government''s chicanery know no limits. In the past month alone, the Mugabe-appointed official Electoral Supervisory Commission has distributed misleading instructional booklets that could cause unwary voters to invalidate their paper ballots. The commission has also drastically cut back the number of polling places in urban constituencies favorable to Tsvangirai. The aim, especially in and around Harare, the largest city, is to frustrate potential voters by causing confusion and mandating long waits in interminable lines in the broiling summer sun.
Moreover, Tsvangirai has been attacked and his meetings disrupted. Nearly 100 of his supporters have been killed and thousands wounded and maimed.
Several indigenous human rights organizations, as well as what is left of the independent press in Zimbabwe, have documented these brutalities.
Mugabe''s government regularly hauls local journalists into custody and subjects them to police interrogation. It sharply curtailed visas for international reporters and banned the BBC. It successfully ignored legal rulings to the contrary and shut the first independent local broadcaster. Now that same station beams programs into Zimbabwe by shortwave from London. Otherwise, television and radio are state run, as are the traditional daily and Sunday newspapers. The regime''s propaganda effort has been relentless and defamatory of the opposition.
Most African elections nowadays are observed by international teams to strengthen their legitimacy and reliability. However, despite solemn promises to the European Union, the Commonwealth of Nations, President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, and President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, Mugabe has refused to countenance a full range of EU observers, banned British observers, and rebuffed US initiatives.
All local observers are paid employees of the state. Additionally, there is a small Norwegian observer mission and larger delegations from South Africa and the Southern African Development Community. Some of the South African observers came under fire last week when Mugabe''s legions attacked Movement for Democratic Change meetings. But how free the South African and Development Community missions will be to report on the conduct of the elections will depend on the political calculations of their several governments.
Outsiders might plausibly suppose that a people preyed upon by their government would oppose it at the polls. Outsiders might also suppose that a people short of essential food might well vote overwhelmingly for anyone opposed to Mugabe, especially because their hunger directly results from Mugabe''s policies.
Inflation has soared in a year from 38 percent to 116 percent. In a year, the value of the Zimbabwe dollar against the US dollar has fallen from 1-40 to 1-400. Basic medicines and other hospital supplies cannot be found. Schools are closed. About 60 percent of all Zimbabweans are unemployed. Eighty percent live below the official poverty line. Teachers and other civil servants go without pay. Only the army, police, and the newly recruited paramilitary groups receive regular wages. Mugabe has made once prosperous Zimbabwe poor and the life of its inhabitants mean and short.
This weekend''s election is meant to provide Zimbabweans with their only opportunity to decide whether they want a continuation of Mugabe''s brand of autocracy and terror. But, assuming the mantle of "father of his people," Mugabe says that he knows best.
Just possibly, the heavy hand of repression will not be able to stifle Zimbabweans, whatever tricks Mugabe continues to play. If so, the strength of people power and democracy will be demonstrated in Zimbabwe and for Africa. Then the key question for South Africa and the United States would be how to prevent Mugabe from voiding the election result, as the Burmese military junta did in 1990 and President Alberto Fujimori attempted to do in Peru in 2000.
Election theft could throw protesters into the Zimbabwean streets. If the army defends Mugabe and fires on its fellow citizens, the resulting mayhem might well compel a South African or Commonwealth intervention. But if the army refuses to fire, then Mugabe will follow Slobodan Milosovic into history, and Zimbabweans will have reclaimed their freedom. If one of those positive scenarios prevails, the dictators of Africa will learn that only democracy pays.