Zimbabwe: Tension and Plots Precede Second Round

by Alex Thurston :: Filed Under Africa / Asia / Europe :: May 18th, 2008 @ 12:50 pm EST

Zimbabwe’s Movement for Democratic Change, whose leader Morgan Tsvangirai captured a plurality of votes in the first round of Zimbabwe’s presidential elections in March, has agreed to participate in a June 27 run off election. The MDC has vowed to “bury” Mugabe in the second round.

MDC vice president Thokozani Khupe told about 10,000 supporters in Zimbabwe’s second city of Bulawayo that the opposition would win by an even bigger margin after official results from the March 29 first round vote showed Tsvangirai did not secure sufficient votes to avoid a run-off.

The MDC insists Tsvangirai won outright the first time.

“We decided to participate in the run-off to give the people of Zimbabwe a second chance to kick out the dictatorship. We have now declared a zero vote for Robert Mugabe,” Khupe told supporters on Sunday.

“We need to give Mugabe a final blow. On June 27 we will be having a ZANU-PF funeral. We are going to make sure we bury them so that they will not resurrect again.”

Yet despite the opposition’s aggressive tone, the specter of violence still looms over the campaign. That’s why Tsvangirai remains in exile, openly accusing Mugabe of plotting his assassination. He has now postponed a return trip indefinitely.

Violence threatens the rank and file of the opposition as well, said the US ambassador.

On Friday, the US ambassador warned post-election violence had made a fair second round run-off vote impossible.

James McGee told the BBC he had evidence that the police and military had been involved in “pure unadulterated violence designed to intimidate people from voting” in the election, which the electoral commission has set for 27 June.

Opposition and human rights groups have said hundreds of opposition supporters have been beaten up and at least 30 killed since the first round on 29 March.

As I’ve said before, these two-round systems can be a dirty game. Months of preparation will now give Mugabe and ZANU-PF the means to commit massive vote suppression (by cracking heads, if necessary) as well as massive vote rigging. The most likely scenario now, I think, is that after a disputed second round both parties will declare victory. Then the international community will likely sit on its hands as the country experiences further violence.

If the powers that be really wanted to make a difference, they would act now, and communicate clearly to Mugabe that fraud and violence will not be tolerated.