Mugabe to go down fighting - experts
2008-04-02 22:22
Special Report
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe accused his political rivals of trying to use constitutional reforms to get rid of him, but warned that his Zanu-PF party would reject any changes threatening its future.
A dusty road leads to the village of Wedza, where veterans of Zimbabwe's liberation war eke out a meagre living on their farm cooperative, which after a promising start now brings only despair.
Harare - Zimbabwe's President Robert
Mugabe is likely to resist pressure to make a graceful exit and
go down fighting in an election runoff with opposition leader
Morgan Tsvangirai, analysts said on Wednesday.
"Mugabe is a high stakes political gambler, and I think he
is going to go for it with everything he can marshall.
"But I
don't think he can reverse his fortunes," said Brian Kagoro, a
lawyer and political commentator.
A senior Western diplomat, who asked not to be named, said:
"He is not the type that quietly walks away into the sunset.
"I
don't think he will take up any of these offers of an exit
deal."
The signs are clear that Mugabe's iron grip on the country
is slipping after 28 years in power and even his control of
powerful security forces and militias will not save him.
Lost control of Parliament
Official results on Wednesday showed Mugabe's Zanu-PF party
had lost control of Parliament after the combined opposition
parties built an unassailable lead.
This will weaken Mugabe's
important powers of patronage.
Cracks have appeared in the previously monolithic Zanu-PF
even if fear has stopped many powerful figures openly backing
former finance minister Simba Makoni, the third candidate in the
election.
Makoni and a breakaway faction of the opposition Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC) are likely to unite behind veteran
Mugabe rival Tsvangirai in a runoff.
"Mugabe will go into any re-run a very desperate man, and I
see him being beaten very badly, getting humiliated," said
Eldred Masunungure, a political science professor at the
University of Zimbabwe.
'Fighting the economy'
Kagoro agreed: "He cannot win this election because he is
fighting the economy, and the economy is in such bad shape you
cannot gloss over it without looking ridiculous."
Mugabe's hardline politics have pushed the former British
colony's economy into freefall - with the world's highest
inflation at more than 100 000% - a virtually worthless
currency, shortages of food and fuel and an HIV/Aids epidemic.
Tsvangirai's MDC said on Wednesday it had won the
presidential election despite charging widespread government
vote-rigging.
MDC Secretary-General Tendai Biti said they would accept a
runoff even though they had won an absolute majority of 50.3% of the presidential vote. They said Mugabe would be
embarrassed by any runoff.
Deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga, however, said:
"President Mugabe is going nowhere" and emphasised the support
he has from his security forces.
Asked if Mugabe would accept defeat in a runoff, he told Sky
television: "He is a gentleman. He is professional and he
understands these things."
Projections by the governing Zzanu-PF party say Tsvangirai
will fall short of an outright victory. No official presidential
results have been released four days after the poll.
Even the state-run Herald newspaper - normally a loyal
mouthpiece for Mugabe - conceded on Wednesday that he had
failed to win a majority for the first time and would be forced
into a runoff.
Major inroad in rural areas
With the countryside now suffering as much as the urban
opposition strongholds, the MDC has made major inroads into
Mugabe's traditional rural base.
"I just don't see how he is going to recover from this now
because pyschologically there is a momentum building up for the
final blow," Masunungure said.
In the three weeks before a presidential re-run Mugabe is
expected to deploy his political shock troops - independence
war veterans and youth brigades commonly known as "green
bombers".
But analysts say they will find it much harder to be able to
cow an opposition riding a wave of success, despite a fearsome
reputation.
The veteran Zimbabwean leader has survived through a
political patronage system rewarding loyalists, including rural
chiefs, and an iron fist that punishes dissenters.
But his ranks have suffered divisions and desertions over
his refusal to hand over power to a younger leadership.
Wrecked economy
Makoni abandoned Zanu-PF to enter the presidential race as
an independent, accusing Mugabe of stifling political reforms
and wrecking one of Africa's most promising economies.
Zimbabweans, who once had one of the region's highest
standards of living now scrounge to survive in what many call a
"destitute economy." The cost of living is way above average
salaries, and people carry bags of money for simple shopping.
Unemployment is 80%.
Mugabe's seizure and redistribution of white-owned farms to
unqualified farmers, many of them his cronies, have left a
country which used to export food surviving on aid supplies.
His latest plan to nationalise foreign companies - including
mines and banks - merely accelerated the economy's death spiral.
Rights abuses
A quarter of Zimbabwe's 13 million population has already
fled abroad to find jobs and decent lives.
Some critics say Mugabe is probably hanging onto power as
long as possible because of fears he could be dragged before an
international court for rights abuse charges if he left office.
But his hardline entourage, including security chiefs, may
now be thinking about their own survival and considering whether
the time has come to finally abandon the 84-year-old leader.
- Reuters