Tsvangirai’s Optimism

posted at 7:40 am on June 16, 2008 by Ed Morrissey
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Morgan Tsvangirai spoke with Time Magazine as he risks his life and his freedom to challenge Robert Mugabe for power in Zimbabwe. Tsvangirai has already been arrested several times during the run-off campaign, one Tsvangirai and his MDC party insisted was unnecessary. With Mugabe threatening to hold power regardless of the result of the election, Time wondered what kept Tsvangirai focused on his campaign:

After the first round of elections in March, you told TIME that the country was entering a new phase, which was about the transfer of power and easing Mugabe out of office. Do you still see it like that? How has the post-election violence changed the game?
It still remains the focus. It is the transfer of power. It’s a contest for power now; it’s no longer about voting in terms of what percentages, et cetera. It still remains, How do we transfer power from a man who believes he has got the divine right to rule forever and who does not respect the will of the people, because the will of the people was expressed clearly on March 29, and it will be reaffirmed again on the 27th of June. But still the remaining question is, Will he concede? Will he accept a smooth transition? That still remains a vexing question.

You’ve been detained four times since returning to Zimbabwe [after six weeks of seeking support in Africa and abroad following the March poll], your supporters are being attacked and you’re essentially being prevented from campaigning. How badly has the MDC been weakened since the March elections?
There’s no way you can underrate the impact of this violence, especially in the rural areas. But we are really encouraged and inspired by the will of the people to finish off what they started on March 29. Were it not for the will of the people and the claim by the people that we can’t look back, one could have said, “What’s the point of continuing this campaign?” But for the sake of those who have died and been traumatized, I think it’s the fulfillment of their wish to have this change that has kept us in the field and that will keep us fighting on.

You’ve said that the military is essentially in charge in Zimbabwe now. What do you have to gain, beyond showing once more that this is a regime that is determined to keep itself in power now matter what the Zimbabwean people want?
We want them to say that. We want them to act that way, because then they will have removed any residual legitimacy they had. In fact, they should act to that extreme, and then they will have exposed themselves. And I’m sure that the South African Development Community and the African Union and the whole international community will see the military junta that is in place for what it is.

Reading through this interview, one detects a strong note of fatalism. Tsvangirai clearly does not expect Mugabe to peacefully hand over power if he loses the run-off. He expects the Mugabe regime to become an explicit military dictatorship in the aftermath of a run-off loss, and Tsvangirai apparently expects that to make a difference to the international community.

Unfortunately, Tsvangirai gives the multinational organizations too much credit. No one seriously considers the Mugabe regime democratic, and neither the UN nor the SADC has given any indication that they want to bother with Zimbabwe. South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki has busied himself pretending that Mugabe isn’t a murderous dictator for the last three months and shows no signs of removing his lips from Mugabe’s backside now. The UN can’t even deal with an Iran that wants to go nuclear while funding terrorist groups all across the Middle East. It’s no wonder that they feted Mugabe in Rome earlier this month while Mugabe used food aid as a political weapon on his starving people.

The ugly truth is that Mugabe will almost certainly rig the election results, if he can’t achieve the same end by burning his opposition alive. When he does, the world will ignore it, perhaps issuing a tut-tut while emulating Mbeki and embracing the tyrant.

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