As of now I am moving my Zimbabwe coverage from the South Africa Blog to this Africa Blog.
Even as outside observers continue to ask if Robert Mugabe can lose his race to maintain control over the country he has so dominated for nearly three decades, the wily old despot works to ensure that losing is not an option. Oh, sure, it seemed like an act of transparency, largesse, even, when Mugabe announced recently that he was inviting nearly four-dozen organizations and countries to participate as election observers. but that announcement lost some of its punch when he also made clear that critical western observers would not be among those he would welcome. And so whether we see the observers who are being allowed to come to Zimbabwe at the end of the month as stooges or plants or merely as feckless enablers, one likelihood exists: as so often happens, the much-ballyhooed election observers will be allowed to see what the government wants them to see, or else what they observe will not be of much moment. If Mugabe steals or brutalizes his way to victory, the observers will see as much and will know they are powerless to stop it. Why would Mugabe care? He, like so many other African Big Men, hardly places a lot of stock in outside opinion, and he has never cared in the past. Why would now be any different?
It will not help that it appears that the elections will have intentionally obscure guidelines and procedures and that the government seems content to pull out yet another tool in the Big Man arsenal, chaos and anarchy, in the election's run-up. Zimbabwe's recently announced record 100,000+% inflation but something tells me that such unpleasantness will not deter Mugabe. Such realities, usually deadly to any leader, never have in the past. Why would they this time around? Mugabe has the rhetoric and the guns and the power of what he has turned into the most bully pulpit. That's all he has ever needed in the past. For all of my optimistic inclinations and earnest hopes, I do not see that changing this time around.
