The runoff election approaches in Zimbabwe and three trends are beginning to emerge: Robert Mugabe and his supporters are continuing to dig in their heels. The outside world is increasingly vocal about concerns but still short on tangible action. And the runoff appears set to go on as long as the Movement for Democratic Change and Morgan Tsvangirai have the stomach for it and resist demands to delay or cancel the runoffs or to engage in power-sharing talks. Of these three trends, the role of the outside world is the only one with an even remote chance to shake up the status quo, barring an impossible to conceive change of tack from Mugabe or a hopefully unlikely concession by Tsvangirai.
Although it may fall into the “too little, too late category,” a group of eminent African leaders, including fourteen formestate presidents, two former heads of the United Nations, African Nobel laureates and some of the continent's top artists and business leaders, have called for an end to violence and intimidation in Zimbabwe as the country prepares for the June 27 election run-off. The letter also calls for Mugabe's government to restore full access to the country for humanitarian and aid agencies helping the country's people after the recent cases in which the government or its supporters have seized aid, including food aid from the United States, and given it to ZANU-PF allies. The United States has also called upon the United Nations to take action in Zimbabwe.
Little of this pressure is likely to result in concrete change. But hopefully it will allow for the conditions necessary to pursue intervention in the sadly likely situation in which Mugabe steals and brutalizes his way to “victory” in the runoff.
