For the first time in years, members of Zimbabwe’s embattled opposition are shouting their allegiance on the streets and wearing their party regalia openly.
As parliamentary polls draw near, President Robert Mugabe has ratcheted down the violence and intimidation that have cowed dissent, hoping he can win a stamp of legitimacy for his nearly 25-year regime and pave the way for a successor of his choice.
The question, analysts say, is whether the gamble will pay off for his Zanu-PF.
Mugabe, an 81-year-old former guerrilla fighter, has led Zimbabwe since independence from Britain in 1980.
”Zanu-PF is of the impression that they have built an insurance system that is foolproof,” said Brian Kogoro, chairperson of Crisis in Zimbabwe, a coalition of NGOs. ”But I think Zanu-PF has overestimated not only its popularity, but also its capacity to steal votes.”
At a rally on Monday in Chivhu, about 145km south of the capital, Harare, Mugabe dismissed the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) as ”a tool of Western imperialism”.
The event in the ruling party’s rural heartland drew just a few thousand people — many of whom said they were bused in from elsewhere. Up to 20 000 people have attended opposition rallies in recent weeks.
At stake are the 120 elected seats in Zimbabwe’s 150-seat Parliament. But since the president appoints the remaining 30 seats, the MDC will need to win 76 seats for a majority.
The opposition won 57 seats in the last parliamentary election in 2000, despite what Western observers called widespread violence, intimidation and vote rigging. But it has lost six seats in subsequent by-elections.
Opposition leaders and human rights groups say Mugabe has not abandoned political violence and may be working behind the scenes to rig the vote. If his party does lose, the ever-defiant Mugabe could well void the elections.
But the apparent reduction of overt abuses is read by many as an attempt to polish his image. In addition, he has carefully picked election observers, barring those who have criticised the state of Zimbabwean democracy and allowing only those seen as friendly.
Grand exit
If Zanu-PF wins an election deemed free and fair, analysts say Mugabe can safely hand over power to a successor — once he chooses one — when his current term expires in 2008.
”The stage is set for a grand exit,” Kogoro said. ”Despite the strong sentiments by the opposition and civil society about his rule over the last couple of decades, he will exit as father of the nation.”
The veneer of political tolerance has emboldened MDC supporters.
”This time there is no violence,” said Davidson Mwagaani, a 22-year-old opposition supporter who spent Easter morning at a Harare rally, his head wrapped like a mummy in bandanas printed with the party slogan ”A new beginning”.
The opposition believes Zimbabweans have had enough of three-digit inflation, endless food shortages and joblessness in what was once a regional breadbasket.
Since the birth of the MDC six years ago, Mugabe’s government has sought to shore up support with a radical land-reform programme to right colonial-era imbalances.
But the often violent seizure of thousands of white-owned farms for redistribution to black Zimbabweans, coupled with years of drought and a worsening Aids epidemic, has destroyed the country’s agriculture-based economy.
Opposition leaders concede, however, that the challenge will be getting their supporters to the polls in a country that has never experienced a free and fair election — and ensuring their ballots are counted.
This week’s poll will test the commitment of African leaders to promoting democracy and good governance in their own back yard, international rights groups say.
Odds against opposition
Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and others have said the odds are still heavily stacked against the opposition.
While overt violence has declined markedly since 2002, security forces and members of Mugabe’s feared youth militia have maintained an intimidating presence at opposition rallies. On Sunday, 146 opposition supporters were arrested as they left a Harare campaign event singing and chanting political slogans from the backs of trucks, police said.
The ruling party has also shut down most independent media in Zimbabwe and is using state resources for campaigning.
And although state-run television and radio have been broadcasting opposition advertisements, they have also been flooding the airways with pro-government music and slanting news programmes in favour of Zanu-PF, according to the independent Media Monitoring Project of Zimbabwe.
Rights groups are also concerned about the state of the voters’ roll, to which they have been given only limited access, and reports that rural voters are being led to believe their vote is not secret.
While the MDC leadership is upbeat about Thursday’s poll, many Zimbabweans remain fearful of expressing their political allegiances openly.
Most said they plan to vote but are not optimistic that the outcome will reflect their opinions.
Maud Whami, a 32-year-old mother of three, said she will accept the outcome regardless of whether it is fraudulent.
”What else can we do?” she said, shaking her head as she headed home from selling flavoured ices at a cemetery.
‘Half-wit’
Meanwhile, reports Michael Hartnack, Mugabe lashed out on Monday at Archbishop Pius Ncube, calling him a half-wit a day after the outspoken Roman Catholic cleric called for a peaceful uprising against Mugabe.
Mugabe’s attack on the archbishop during a campaign rally at Chivhu, 140km south of Harare, came just hours after a ruling-party spokesperson called the cleric an inveterate liar.
Ncube, a regular critic of Mugabe and his autocratic rule, called on Sunday for ”a non-violent popular uprising” if Thursday’s parliamentary elections fail because of fraud to unseat the government.
Mugabe, addressing a ruling-party rally, also said the archbishop ”prays for God to kill me, but God doesn’t kill for nothing”.
”I don’t know to what god he prays, perhaps some other god. His prayers are not as pious as his name suggests,” said Mugabe.
Mugabe was referring to comments by Ncube, who was quoted by The Economist last week as saying: ”People just pray that Mugabe should die. I pray for that.”
State radio said the ruling Zanu-PF party information secretary, Nathan Shamuyarira, a retired foreign minister, accused Ncube earlier on Monday of serving British and American plans for regime change with his call for a peaceful uprising.
Ncube ”is a mad, inveterate liar. He has been lying for the past two years,” Shamuyarira told state radio.
Shamuyarira pledged to release figures on distribution of food to drought-hit areas of the country that will refute the archbishop’s allegations that those suspected of supporting the MDC are being denied food aid.
”He, however, fits into the scheme of the British and Americans, who are calling for regime change and are feeding him with these wild ideas,” he said.
”Archbishop Ncube’s open call for an unconstitutional uprising shows he is an instrument of the West’s illegal regime-change agenda,” he added.
Food access
Access to food has become a key issue during the election campaign, with Zanu-PF party chairperson John Nkomo telling a weekend rally in Gweru that the government will deal with those responsible for the shortages, the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation reported on Monday.
”Employees of the [state monopoly] Grain Marketing Board are causing shortages by withholding grain or selling it on the black market for personal profit,” Nkomo was quoted as saying.
The marketing board has said it is importing 1,5-million tonnes of maize from South Africa to ensure ”no one would starve”.
The government-owned national daily newspaper The Herald reported that Shamuyarira has criticised London-based Sky News, which was among news organisations that reported the archbishop’s comments. Shamuyarira said the government will not ”take any measures against the news crew”, which has been given accreditation to cover the elections, but demanded it substantiate the archbishop’s claims.
Representatives of many leading newspapers and media organisations have been refused permission to enter Zimbabwe for the poll, while observers from international bodies and governments that have been critical in the past — including the European Union, Commonwealth and United States — have been barred.
Under Mugabe’s recently passed Public Order and Security Act, anyone calling for unauthorised demonstrations or any form of ”coercion” of the government faces up to 20 years’ imprisonment.
Shamuyarira, however, made no threats to have the outspoken archbishop prosecuted. — Sapa-AP