A Pyrrhic Victory?

The electoral body in Zimbabwe shocked Zimbabweans who have been yawning for a change of leadership and indeed the international community when it announced the result of a recently-conducted election and declared the ageless President Robert Mugabe winner for the 7th time.

The 89-year old president of the Southern African country and the leader of the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) contested the election on the platform of his party.

According to the result released by the electoral body, ZANU-PF got 61.09 per cent of the total votes cast on the July 31 election to beat his perennial rival and Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangarai, of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). The prime minister, widely believed to be an ally of Western powers, scored 34 percent of the votes.

Besides the presidential election which Mugabe won, his party secured 160 parliamentary seats against the 49 won by the rival MDC. This victory apparently positions the ZANU-PF party to tinker with the constitution and possibly legalize Mugabe’s ambition to be life president.

Expectedly, the opposition MDC has rejected the result and described it as a complete sham. Apart from the era of the late opposition leader, Mr. Joshua Nkomo, this electoral defeat has been described as the heaviest in the elections held in that country in recent times.

Some observers have partially blamed the massive defeat suffered by MDC on its ill preparedness. They reasoned that the candidate of the opposition party might after all be a wrong choice as he had featured severally and hence lost political value.

But a more worrisome problem was the pre-election protest by the MDC against the process leading to the election which appeared skewed in favour of President Mugabe’s party. Issues were raised about the authenticity of the voters’ register. While the electoral body claimed that only 300,000 voters were denied voting on election day, the opposition put the actual figure of those disenfranchised at approximately 900,000. The country’s electoral authorities also said about another 200,000 voters had to be “assisted”, an act which has been interpreted to be a veiled reference to voter manipulation.

Considering the facts made available by the electoral body, it is possible that the 89-year old president might not have won as convincingly as his party claims. However, if the MDC heads to court as it threatens it will do, I am very optimistic that the party will not get the justice it seeks. Mugabe and his cohorts would emerge victorious from the court.

Regardless of what the court verdict might be, I believe the verdict given by the court of public opinion is what Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party have to contend with and the moral burden that comes with it. But even if the octogenarian won the election in less controversial circumstances, is it not a shame that in this modern era a man will rule a country for 33 years, when the nation is not under a monarchy?

When this tenure expires, Mugabe will be 95. By then he would have ruled Zimbabwe for 39 years. Unless he dies in the course of that tenure, there is still no guarantee that he would not go for an eighth term.

Undoubtedly, the seeming life president was the architect of the struggle for his nation’s independence against white minority rule. It is also unarguable that he redressed the vexatious land issue (which saw minority whites owning most of the arable land in the country) in favour of blacks who are in the majority. But is it not curious that in a country of about 14 million people, only one man has monopoly of answers to the many problems of the country?

It is wrong for Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe since independence in 1980, to consider himself indispensable one who must rule interminably. The fact that he has failed to groom a successor all these years questions his leadership credentials and suggests that he is selfish and perhaps has a lot to conceal. Election observers may have passed the election as free and fair, but there seems to be something wrong with the entire process and outcome. Mugabe’s victory may be a pyrrhic one after all.

Sadly, there are many African leaders who operate in the shoes of Mugabe. From Cameroun, Uganda, Burkina Faso to Equitorial Guinea and several other countries, the story is that their leaders have no intention to vacate after many years of leadership. Despite the revolution sweeping away many sit-tight leaders in Africa, Mugabe and his co-travellers have failed to see the inevitable end that awaits all leaders who strangulate democracy by their hold on power.

Therefore the most honourable thing for him to do is to step down and let the younger ones rule. He has to act fast before he is swept off by the revolution devouring sit-tight rulers in Africa.