Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and his country’s largely powerless prime Minister, has appealed to South African President Jacob Zuma in hopes that South Africa will finally intervene to prevent Robert Mugabe from stepping up violence and other dirty tricks prior to Zim’s upcoming but as-yet unscheduled elections. Most importantly, Tsvangirai wants to make sure that Mugabe will not have him arrested, as has happened on a number of occasions in the past. Tsvangirai believes that his arrest will lead to the already fraught Unity Government falling apart and eliminating any hope of peaceful change through the political process.
It has long been assumed by most observers that Jacob Zuma has far less patience for Robert Mugabe than did Thabo Mbeki even though it was always unclear precisely what steps Mbeki could have taken. It is almost as unclear what power Zuma has with regard to Mugabe, but the one shortcoming of both Mbeki and Zuma has been an inability to move the needle with regard to the Southern African Development Community (SADC), a body that has consistently punted when it came to dealing with Zimbabwe’s crises.
