12 April 2008
editorial
The International Monetary Fund reports that Zimbabwe's economy will shrink by 6.6 percent this year and perform even worse next year. (Ironically, the rest of Africa is projected to grow at about the same rate.)
Officially, inflation is running riot at 100,580 percent, but could actually be 164,900 percent. And 8 out of 10 people have no jobs. Not surprisingly, nearly 4 million of that country's 13 million citizens have left in search of a better life, mostly to neighbouring countries.
It is in these dire conditions that the country went to the polls on March 29. While the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission quickly released the parliamentary results showing a narrow defeat for President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party, presidential results are yet to be issued.
The electoral commission says it is still verifying the presidential results because several elections- House of Assembly, Senate and local councils - were held on the same day. But delay in releasing the presidential results has allowed for widespread speculation that Mr Mugabe, in power since 1980, lost to opposition MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai.
MDC says 84-year-old Mugabe is sitting on the results to provoke violence so he can order a state of emergency and keep himself in power. The party is also saying the man may be planning a run-off but is taking his time to prepare to run under circumstances he can control to ensure an outright win.
There is no reason to disagree with the opposition given Mr Mugabe's record since 2000. These fears can only go away upon immediate release of the presidential results clearly showing they were not fiddled with.
In the circumstances, the 14-member Southern African Development Community plans an extraordinary summit in Lusaka today. The meeting will be a real test of the bite, if any, that SADC has. But it is also an opportunity for SADC, having gone too soft on Mr Mugabe for too long as he laid Zimbabwe to waste, to burnish its image and show relevance.
SADC leaders must therefore compel their brother leader, in a clear statement of intent, to issue the results forthwith and stop harassing, detaining and kidnapping opposition polling agents and supporters. That sort of behaviour is despicable. Why hold an election in the first place if you cannot accept the outcome?
Robert Gabriel Mugabe can because the man has no sense of shame, his glorious past notwithstanding. And SADC must not let him off the hook with some limp statement.
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