Drew Forrest and Donwald Pressly
President Thabo Mbeki has quietly affirmed the “legitimacy” of the Zimbabwean election, after a week’s silence in which he sought to divert world attention from his judgement on the poll by pressing for a coalition government in Zimbabwe.
This week’s Cabinet statement said: “President Mbeki has noted and accepted the report of the South African parliamentary observer mission adopted by Parliament and the interim report of the South African observer mission.” Both missions found that the election was a legitimate or credible expression of the Zimbabwean people’s will.
The statement said the government “will continue to relate to the government of Zimbabwe as the elected government of that country”.
The view of Mbeki and his party is at clear variance with his decision, as a member of the Commonwealth “troika” of heads of state, to suspend Zimbabwe for a year in response to the damning Commonwealth observers’ report.
Calling the suspension “an acceptable compromise”, African National Congress spin doctors contrived to suggest that Mbeki won a major concession by staving off sanctions at the London troika meeting and that there were mere differences of emphasis between the South African and Commonwealth observer mission reports.
Cabinet spokesperson Joel Netshitenzhe said all “labels” including the Commonwealth observer finding that the election outcome “did not adequately reflect the will of Zimbabweans” expressed “some form of displeasure on issues of legislation, polarisation and violence”. How different groups characterised the outcome was a matter “of degree”.
Diplomatic sources said this week that “smart” sanctions against Zimbabwe’s leaders by the United States and European Union remain very much on the agenda. Britain was likely to be led by the EU.
The deciding issue was not so much the participation of Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in coalition rule, as sweeping changes in the policies of the Zimbabwean government. These would have to include orderly land reform under the rule of law, electoral reform and an end to the persecution of the MDC and its supporters.
South African diplomacy this week was partly directed at goading Tsvangirai into unity talks. Mugabe is known to blame the MDC leader’s reluctance to join a unity process for Zimbabwe’s Commonwealth suspension. Mugabe’s move to rearrest Tsvangirai and charge him with treason is seen by Zimbabwean commentators as revenge for the latter’s stance on unity talks.
Reacting in a curious statement, ANC spokesperson Smuts Ngonyama said the arrest “was part of the painful process of healing” and a chapter that would close when Zimbabwe moved towards reconciliation, unity and peace. The veiled threat appeared to be that the charges would stand until Tsvangirai played ball.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw voiced concern at Tsvangirai’s arrest. “Any notion of prosecuting the opposition leader is quite inimical to the concept of national reconciliation,” said Howard.
In a further intervention Netshitenzhe urged Zimbabweans not to participate in civil protest. The Zimbabwean labour movement had called for a strike in protest against the poll.
“On every detail of policy the South Africans are acting as Mugabe’s apologist,” said Zimbabwe Independent editor Iden Wetherell.
Sources said Mbeki left Harare for London hoping to urge the Commonwealth to avoid any punitive action, on the promise of a national dialogue in Zimbabwe. His hand appears to have been forced by Howard’s insistence that the unity process had nothing to do with the status of the election. Commonwealth ministers had made a clear decision in Coolum, Australia, to stay their hand against Mugabe pending the observers’ findings on the conduct of the poll. Howard said later that given the mandate from the Coolum encounter and “in relation to the flawed and undemocratic character of the election one really had no alternative than to reach the decision we did”.
Mugabe, who was banking on the support of Third World Commonwealth members, is said to have been deeply upset when news of the suspension was broken to him. He was partly mollified when told it would be coupled with economic assistance and food aid.
Wetherell said there had been a noticeable change in ruling party atmospherics in Zimbabwe. One sign was an editorial in Zanu-PF’s media front, The Herald, saying the two million MDC voters had to be accommodated and urging national unity.
Mugabe appeared to show an awareness of his international isolation and of Zimbabwe’s desperate economic plight. Apart from the Commonwealth decision, only five of 22 invited heads of state attended his inauguration.
Western diplomats hope that unity talks will start soon, but Wetherell is pessimistic about an outcome. The MDC was reluctant to be “co-opted and emasculated”, as Joshua Nkomo’s Zapu had been in 1980. It wanted fresh elections under international supervision and a dismantling of Zanu-PF’s repressive state apparatus, including a new chief justice and police commissioner. Mugabe was unlikely to make such concessions.
Reacting to ANC MPs’ endorsement of the election this week, the Democratic Alliance’s Dene Smuts said the ANC refused to call “the rape of democracy” in Zimbabwe by its name. “It must be very confusing for the ANC to be instructed to vote one way, only to see the president effectively instructed to suspend Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth on the same day.”