The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
As the delay in announcing the results of ZimbabweÕs presidential election stretched out endlessly, the political jokes proliferated across southern Africa. The best ones were based on the old ÒWhy did the chicken cross the road?Ó joke. The correct answer is ÒTo get to the other side,Ó but the protagonists in the Zimbabwean crisis were all given lines that mocked the positions they had taken. Thus, for example, President Robert Mugabe, who lost the election but wouldnÕt admit it: ÒThe chicken will never be allowed to cross the road. Not in my lifetime! Let those that run away to Bush and Brown do so. Not my chicken! My chicken will never cross the road. It will never be colonized again!Ó Or Tendai Biti, secretary-general of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC): ÒWe have irrefutable evidence from those who were at the road that the chicken has, indeed, without any shadow of doubt, crossed the road. I hereby declare that Chicken Huku Inkuku is now the legitimate resident of the other side of the road.Ó Finally, on May 2, 34 days after the vote, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission released the results of the presidential election. Predictably, it showed that while opposition leader Morgan TsvangiraiÕs 47.9 per cent of the votes put him almost five per cent ahead of Robert Mugabe, he had not cleared the 50 per cent hurdle and so would have to face Mugabe again in a run-off. The MDC claims that the delay was imposed so that the ruling ZANU-PF party could tamper with the results, and that Tsvangirai really won 50.3 per cent of the votes in the first round. He has been sheltering in South Africa for fear that MugabeÕs thugs will beat him up again or even kill him, so it may be some days before the party leaders decide whether to run again in a second round Ð but Didymus Mutasa, minister of state for national security, cruelly outlined their dilemma. ÒI donÕt think they are serious about not participating (in a run-off) because they have been saying different things since the election day,Ó Mutasa said. ÒBut if they are serious this time, they will be shocked, because we will proceed without them. The message is very simple: if they donÕt participate, they lose the run-off.Ó Strategy The ruling regimeÕs strategy for the run-off is already clear. Recent changes to the electoral law included a great multiplication in the number of rural polling stations, which makes it easy to identify which villages backed the opposition. Many of these villages have already had a visit from ZANU-PF enforcers who beat suspected opposition supporters. The MDC claims that 20 of its supporters have already been killed, and many hundreds beaten so severely that they had to be hospitalized. It could be two weeks or even more until the second round of the election, which allows time for every pro-MDC village to get the treatment at least once. The MDC will almost certainly agree to take part in the run-off in the end. Its supporters will face violence that may deter many from voting, and the regime will not permit adequate scrutiny of the voting by outside observers. Yet it is still possible that Mugabe will lose by such a big and undeniable margin that he will have to acknowledge defeat. When you take account of the legions of Òghost voters,Ó all strangely sharing the same few addresses, who loyally cast their votes for Mugabe in every election, and the large number of known MDC supporters whose names were removed from the electoral rolls, the real proportion of eligible voters who would now vote against Mugabe in a free election probably amounts to two-thirds or more. Thanks to the results of the first round, they now know that they are in the majority. It is imaginable that this will give them the courage to use their votes despite the intimidation they face, and to turf Mugabe out.
