FRESH FROM THE CHARADE OF his latest rigged reelection, Robert Mugabe, dictator of the disintegrating country of Zimbabwe, had the effrontery to show up in Rome for the funeral of Pope John Paul II. Mugabe was raised a Catholic and still sometimes is seen at Mass, though his record as a political leader is anything but saintly.
The U.S. State Department called the March 31 election “seriously tainted,” and European leaders joined in the condemnation. Crucially, however, the observer mission from the Southern African Development Community approved the result. The neighboring governments guilty of condoning this blatant fraud–foremost among them, South Africa–should be made to pay a price in their relationship with the United States.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), fearful of provoking a violent crackdown if it staged street protests and dubious of the value of a legal challenge, remains paralyzed in inaction. Ordinary Zimbabweans are furious. “We should have boycotted the elections. If we had maintained the boycott, [Mugabe’s] ZANU-PF would have had no one to steal the election from,” shouted mechanic Mafios Mukeudzei, as celebrating thugs from the ruling party drove past his garage a few days after the vote.
But higher-ups–Mugabe, the Southern African Development Community, and the larger African Union–all wanted the election so they could maintain the fiction that Zimbabwe is a democracy.
Given the absence of a free press, the government’s use of food as a political weapon, widespread intimidation by the ruling party, and even murder, all of which have worn down most opposition, Mugabe may have believed his Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front would actually win the popular vote. He allowed foreign journalists entry a week before the election, and while many opposition activists were hampered from doing their job by being denied access to voter registration rolls and polling stations, there was no systemic violence against the opposition. Mugabe even allowed most people who wanted to vote to do so–although in several key constituencies, many would-be voters’ names were not on the rolls, while their dead relatives’ were.
After years of speculation over nightmare scenarios, the fraud was astonishingly simple. Where ZANU-PF looked as though it would lose key constituencies, it simply announced bogus results. It could do this because there was no independent monitoring of the ballots. But inattention to detail and poor coordination by ZANU-PF meant even this relatively secure approach was exposed almost immediately, when the tallies announced by two different electoral bodies failed to jibe.
First, officials of the ZANU-PF-run Zimbabwe Elections Commission announced the number of people who had cast ballots in each constituency at the close of voting. Meanwhile, the police radioed results to the National Logistics Committee in the capital, Harare. Many hours later, the Logistics Committee released the official election results.
I have now seen records documenting over 30 discrepancies between the two sets of results, but three quintessential examples will suffice. In Beitbridge, the Elections Commission announced that 36,821 votes had been counted, yet the Logistics Committee counted only 20,602 votes, with ZANU-PF winning. In Goromonzi, the Elections Commission claimed 15,611 voters, but according to the Logistics Committee the winning ZANU-PF candidate alone received 16,782 votes. Similarly, in Makoni North, the Elections Commission counted 14,068 voters, while the Logistics Committee gave the ZANU-PF candidate 18,910 votes.
The Elections Commission figures would have been hard to fake, since they reflected counted voters and were issued immediately upon the closing of each polling station; whereas, the National Logistics Committee had hours to come up with its count, and at a secret location in Harare. In perfect Mugabe style, no observer mission–indeed, no outside party–had access to the Logistics Committee. The South Africans admitted at their media briefing that they did not visit the committee–indeed, that they did not even know it existed.
The ruling-party leaders showed a breezy lack of embarrassment that these discrepancies were witnessed by observers. Their unconcern shows that President Mugabe knew the Southern African observers would endorse his election no matter what–short of violence at the polls.
Clutching at straws, a spokesman for the opposition MDC party, Dave Coltart, said, “If we can provide clear evidence of fraud we will remove any last hope that Mugabe may have of proving legitimacy. . . . When you have such blatant rigging, it’s only a matter of time before it gets exposed.”
The problem for Coltart is that the fraud has already been exposed, and nothing will happen. Tom Woods of the State Department said prior to the election that the United States “would not hold the region hostage over Zimbabwe.” Unthreatened by Washington, regional leaders proceeded with business as usual. MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai has so far ruled out legal challenges over the poll, which may be the right call given that his complaints over the 2000 election are still pending, although to make a simple complaint would cost little energy. He has also ruled out armed struggle, and considering the ruthlessness of the army and police, this may be wise too. But anger over another stolen election is turning to despair, and Tsvangirai needs to act quickly or see his leadership crumble.
Catholic archbishop Pius Ncube says the MDC should have thought of “a plan to get Mugabe out. . . . Here in Zimbabwe people are so pushed around by Mugabe they usually take the results and say, ‘Ah, ah, what a pity.’ They want to leave it up to God. What I say is that God helps those who help themselves.” Ncube is extraordinarily brave, but unlike other Zimbabweans, he has some protection from the Vatican and Mugabe’s Catholicism. But he is also right: Action is required, now.
Emulating the recent Ukrainian uprising, as Ncube wants, will be very difficult–no neighboring countries are really friendly to the opposition, there are no free media to summon people to the streets, and the police may repress protesters brutally. But as I write, independent media representatives are still in Zimbabwe, and could still report any action by the opposition.
Sheperd Matetsi, a 26-year-old mechanic, was game for protest the day the results were announced. “We’re waiting for word from Tsvangirai,” he said. “If he gives the word, we will go to the streets, . . . although there is some risk to life. But he hasn’t called.” And as AK-47-toting soldiers fanned out across the suburbs of Bulawayo in an effort to prevent any large gatherings, people waited.
Most likely, Tsvangirai and the MDC will avoid a confrontation, and opt for a series of strikes, a natural response from a former union leader. But strikes are a pitiful weapon against a president who has already demonstrated that he doesn’t care if the economy collapses. By the time you read this, if protests are not in full swing, Zimbabwe could be stuck with ZANU-PF misrule for many years to come. The State Department’s Tom Woods told me, “It remains our goal to ensure that when the time of transition back to democracy is upon us, those Zimbabweans who must carry the country into the future are prepared to do it.”
As Mugabe’s position strengthens, the more important political interactions are between the United States and Southern Africa. Dave Coltart, the opposition spokesman, wants the State Department to announce that it will have to review the Southern African countries’ eligibility for trade deals and aid under the African Growth and Opportunity Act. While these countries may be more democratic than Zimbabwe and just about meet the requirements of the act, any long-term confidence Washington might have in them has been undermined by their willingness to endorse gross electoral fraud.
South Africa’s abdication is especially depressing. As the leader of this election whitewash, Africa’s most powerful state is flirting with a dangerous retreat into the all-too-crowded ranks of unserious, even odious, regimes that dot the continent. As some worried commentators in South Africa are now saying, it is no longer unthinkable that the ruling African National Congress, the party of Nelson Mandela, might follow the path taken by ZANU-PF. Only a strong signal from Washington, like the withholding of aid, is likely to convey to President Thabo Mbeki the grave concern with which the United States would view any South African retreat from the path of democracy.
Roger Bate is a resident fellow of the American Enterprise Institute.
