All signs indicate that Robert Mugabe is winning in Zimbabwe.
Give the old tyrant his due. Terror and violence and chaos are not the only tools in his arsenal. He also has shown himself to be a master of delay, both in playing out the elections over the course of this year and in terms of holding out long enough in the ongoing negotiations for him to be able effectively to claim victory. Foot-dragging, obfuscation, confusion, and malingering too have their place in the Big Man's bag of tricks. Mugabe has deployed them all brilliantly.
The latest volley in the negotiations have sputtered out, this time with the Southern African Development Community (SADC) unable to cajole Mugabe, with whom far too many SADC leaders have cozy relationships, to yield so much as a centimeter. SADC tried to broker a deal whereby Mugabe's ZANU-PF and Morgan Tsvangirai's MDC would form a unity government and split remaining contested ministries, including Home Affairs, an outcome that would serve ZANU-PF and Mugabe well and the MDC (and the nation) not well at all. Home Affairs controls the police, and control of the police and military (which under previous agreements ZANU-PF would run) is a vital part of Mugabe's power. Splitting these security forces is thus vital to any legitimate agreement. MDC has justly refused to acquiesce to these wholly inequitable demands.
Stalemate serves Mugabe well. Having long ago abandoned even a pretense of caring about legitimacy, Mugabe cares most about power and control. And with the latest developments, Mugabe is simply proceeding as if he had a mandate to act and is pushing forward with a new Zimbabwe government that is favorable to his party's, and thus his, needs.
Robert Mugabe is winning in Zimbabwe, as so many of us feared that he would. Do not expect him to be gracious if he successfully consolidates his rule. You’d be wiser, in fact, to expect the opposite.
