According to a the head of a South African contingent of regional election observers, the presidential election run-off in Zimbabwe cannot take place given the current and threatened levels of violence. How convenient for President Robert Mugabe, for whom violence and the threat of its usage has always been a useful political tool. Such a pronouncement serves his interests perfectly. And of course it does little to motivate him to try to diminish the use of violence in the near or distant future if cessation of violence means the runoff can go on as planned. Instability borne of Mugabe's irresponsibility thus works to Mugabe's advantage if that instability means the elections do not take place and Mugabe maintains and consolidates his control.
Perhaps the observers, who surely do not mean to fuel Mugabe's despotism, should have insisted that a runoff go in in spite of, and perhaps to spite, the cynical use of violence to manipulate the system. There are, after all, worse things than temporal, politically-inspired violence, and that is a permanent state of politically-inspired violence.
