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Zimbabwe: Tsvangirai (Almost) Won |
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Zimbabwe’s Election Commission coughed up the results of March’s presidential polls today, showing MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai won nearly 48% of the vote, beating Mugabe. However, not winning a majority forces a runoff, and the MDC is not happy.
Tsvangirai has raised doubts over whether he would take part in a run-off and has been out of the country since shortly after the vote, trying to keep up international pressure on Mugabe.
But if he refused to take part, then Mugabe would keep his hold on power.
Tsvangirai has suggested he could only contest a second round if it was monitored by United Nations-led foreign observers. The main international observer group during the first round was from Zimbabwe’s neighbors.
The opposition accuses the ruling ZANU-PF party, which lost its parliamentary majority in a parallel vote on March 29, of a campaign of violence and intimidation ahead of a possible second round and says 20 of its members have been killed.
The government denies that and accuses the MDC of political attacks.
On Wednesday, the United States cast doubt on the credibility of the election results and said it was hard to see how a run-off could be fair because of state-orchestrated violence.
Now, the results are plausible…to an extent. Dictators, and we here in the US don’t often like to admit this, do have support from some sectors of the population. But it’s also highly plausible that Tsvangirai won outright, and if we ever find out the truth of the matter I doubt it will be any time in the immediate - or relevant - future.
So I hate to say it, but were I Tsvangirai I would take the run-off. Protest loudly beforehand, but take it. Boycotts, from what I’ve heard political scientists say, end up hurting opposition parties, and in this case it would give Mugabe an excuse to declare victory. The whole world expects Tsvangirai to win in the second round, and if he does not he will have an extremely strong case that the results were manipulated not once, but twice.
The decision to announce these results is calculated, of course. If we go based on the speculation that there are different voices in Mugabe’s inner circle, it seems that middle-of-the-roaders (in the sense of not being completely authoritarian) are winning out. The regime has shied away from the path of complete repression, which is likely a sign that they are at least somewhat attuned to international pressures. Perhaps they count on repression to win the second round, or annul its results if they prove unfavorable, but they are showing a minimal degree of flexibility. I think Tsvangirai should pursue that opening.
And if the US is going to talk tough, let’s back it up. Let’s lean on Mugabe as hard as we can to allow UN observers in, and let’s continue to denounce any acts of violence. If Zimbabwe has a political transition at its fingertips, we should help them achieve it.
