Reports: Mugabe to resign
posted at 2:23 pm on April 1, 2008 by Ed Morrissey
Some electoral landslides defy all attempts to rig. Robert Mugabe appears to have reached that conclusion, according to sources for AFP. They report that the Zimbabwean dictator has decided to leave power after almost 28 years. The defeat from this weekend convinced him that his time had run out:
Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe is ready to step down after he accepted he failed to win the country’s presidential election, a senior source in his ruling party and diplomats told AFP Tuesday.
An official in Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party said the long-ruling president was prepared to step down but was still trying to win agreement from the army’s chief of staff Constantine Chiwenga.
“He is prepared to step down because he doesn’t want to embarrass himself by going to a run-off,” the source said on condition of anonymity.
Right now, the only hurdle is the army chief of staff, who may be wondering what happens to Mugabe’s collaborators when the MDC takes charge of Zimbabwe. The people surrounding Mugabe now rigged the last election, and probably most of the elections since Mugabe took power in 1980, first as Prime Minister and then as President. In the aftermath of Mugabe’s departure, Zimbabwe will want an accounting of the men who kept their disaster in motion for almost three decades.
And what a disaster Mugabe has been. He took the former nation of Rhodesia and reduced it to pauper status. Zimbabwe had a booming agriculture industry and the beginnings of industrialization when he took charge. Thanks to a mix of statism, post-colonial petulance, and sheer stupidity, Zimbabwe cannot feed itself after being a net exporter, and all of the capital that promised to bring modernization to the country has fled to avoid confiscation.
The MDC has a daunting task in picking up the pieces. At least they could do no worse than Mugabe.
Blowback
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So are they going to go back to the old name for Zimbabwe after he leaves?
upinak on April 1, 2008 at 2:28 PM
Why does U.S. Senator Larry Craig suddenly come to mind ?
Maxx on April 1, 2008 at 2:32 PM
Mugabe is probably looking for a country that will allow him to safely exile in – as the truth of the past twenty years begins to come out, he won’t be secure if he stays in country.
Think_b4_speaking on April 1, 2008 at 2:33 PM
I’ll believe it when I see it. (But I’d love to see it.)
Tanya on April 1, 2008 at 2:38 PM
How long until the emails start going out asking for help with transferring his money out of the country? :-)
Laura on April 1, 2008 at 2:39 PM
Dead. Hanging upside down, by his feet. Thrown to the ground. Urinated upon by women.
That should be Mugabe’s fate.
OhEssYouCowboys on April 1, 2008 at 2:42 PM
First Castro then Mugabe. Lets hope the day of the dictator is passing.
William Amos on April 1, 2008 at 2:42 PM
Please do leave! Those poor people have suffered enough…
____
I am sure the UN is ready willing and able to TRY scumMugabe
for crimes against humanity..I just feel it. /sarc off
SouthTexasLady on April 1, 2008 at 2:43 PM
Ding dong.
mymanpotsandpans on April 1, 2008 at 2:51 PM
Let’s not count our chickens. Things can always be worse. Even if Mugabe steps down quietly this does not guarantee a peaceful transfer of power. A regime is more than one man, however vile he is. It’s still a long, rocky road for Zimbabwe.
Vote Sauron 08 on April 1, 2008 at 2:52 PM
Well Bobbie just screwed up. All his commie friends tried to tell him to by the new “infallible” Diebold election machines… you know …. the ones WITHOUT a paper record backup.
If he would have only done that, he could have programmed the entire election results with his garage door opener.
Maxx on April 1, 2008 at 2:53 PM
If true, this would be great. However the MDC might not be all that great. Even if they aren’t corrupt, can they govern?
aengus on April 1, 2008 at 3:04 PM
The key question now: Will he hang around long enough to be arrested? Methinks he’s smarter than that, but I could be wrong.
perroviejo on April 1, 2008 at 3:08 PM
Can anyone govern this mess at this point? I pray for these people, it almost looks like they need outside help just to keep things halfway stable while they clean out the government and military.
I do hope this works.
Maquis on April 1, 2008 at 3:10 PM
As they say… If it’s not close, they can’t cheat!
gridlock2 on April 1, 2008 at 3:13 PM
He’s already gone, Perroviejo. He had his escape planned long in advance. No way he is going to stick around to face the music.
gridlock2 on April 1, 2008 at 3:15 PM
They found out the hard way that their poverty wasn’t the result of the “white man’s greed” afterall.
Clark1 on April 1, 2008 at 3:46 PM
Ian Smith was quite well liked by the blacks in Zimbabwae in the last years before his death in 2007.
aengus on April 1, 2008 at 3:54 PM
I’d love to see Zimbabwe have a DECENT government that puts it back into economic play and creates prosperity for its people.
Mommynator on April 1, 2008 at 3:56 PM
He can always join Idi Amin in Saudi Arabia.
Hope P. Muntz on April 1, 2008 at 4:06 PM
Me too. It’s going to take a generation to even begin to get there though. It’s hard to revive an agricultural based economy when all of the expertise has been run off. Many of the white farmers went to Zambia and Malawi to start over. I’m not so sure they’d come back now.
Even if they did, what will they come back to? Will the new government give them their land back? Not a chance in my book.
I got an email from a good friend in Malawi earlier today. He said it is a tense situation in Zim and the surrounding countries. Mozambique and Malawi governments have sent troops to their borders to stop any exodus of Zimbabweans into their countries. It could still get ugly if the citizenry gets bent on revenge. Hopefully not.
BacaDog on April 1, 2008 at 4:10 PM
Ahhhhh,……..Africa.
Hard to call this one whities fault. History has made it so crystal clear that even Ray Charles could see that Africans make terrible administrators.
I’m not saying it is a racial thing, but a geographical thing. There is a difference.
saiga on April 1, 2008 at 4:28 PM
Nope. He will stay in power or die tryin’.
After all, we’re talking Zimbabwe here. What used the be the breadbasket of Africa has now become the basket-case.
newton on April 1, 2008 at 4:45 PM
Assume he peacefully relinquishes power in the face of overwhelming defeat. Assume also his long-suffering opponents assume power peacefully.
What will be the state of things in Zimbabwe 5 years hence?
I’d guess largely the same. Sub-saharan African countries are almost universally messed up because that’s the nature of African societies.
It’s good that Mugabe is gone, because he was especially bad, even by African measures, and his absence might mean some small improvements, but if Africa’s history teaches anything, it’s “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”
Muswell Hillbilly on April 1, 2008 at 5:03 PM
It may not be a racial thing but attributing it to geography makes no sense. The white Rhodesians after all had to work with the same geography when they ran Zimbabwae prosperously. Also why are both the mountains areas of North America and the Lowlands of Holland and Belgium both prosperous? What is the geographical explanation?
aengus on April 1, 2008 at 5:03 PM
Not so. In quite a few parts of Africa, business is booming, and black African capitalists are the reason. We just don’t hear about it, because a) it doesn’t fit the media narrative and b) it would mean crediting President Bush, who built on and greatly expanded initiatives started by Bill Clinton.
More here.
Laura on April 1, 2008 at 8:42 PM
Hey wait … isn’t this April 1?
njcommuter on April 1, 2008 at 8:58 PM
In Satan’s house are many mansions. There is one prepared for this demon incarnate.
wepeople on April 1, 2008 at 9:30 PM
It’s a cultural thing.
Tribal cultures make bad administrators. Loyalty to the local group at the expense of the whole. And we do have white “tribal” cultures … Chicago is a good example. If you aren’t part of the machine in Chicago, you ( that is, everyone else ) are screwed.
Kristopher on April 2, 2008 at 11:03 AM
Read Jared Diamond’s “Guns, Germs, and Steel”.
Africa’s north-south orientation meant it missed out on having the Eurasian super crops and domestic animals spread into it. This meant that the food base for large states/cultures just wasn’t there, so the continent was locked into tribalism.
Progress had to be introduced from outside because the lack of these crops meant there was no surplus to support large knowledge/artist classes.
Kristopher on April 2, 2008 at 11:10 AM