Members of the two rival parties held their first-ever national meetings this week to try to drag their troubled southern African country out of its accelerating spiral of political violence and socioeconomic decline. The talks–brokered by South Africa and Nigeria in the Zimbabwean capital of Harare–got off to a rocky start. Monday’s session ended in stalemate when the two sides couldn’t even agree on what they wanted to discuss. Today’s gathering was marginally more successful, adjourning with a statement that the two parties have agreed on “an agenda for dialogue” and will meet again on May 13.
Significantly, Mugabe’s party agreed that the top item on that agenda was the legitimacy of the March election. Still, both sides remain far apart on their key demands. The MDC wants another election; Mugabe’s ZANU-PF refuses to consider such a notion. “The next poll will be held in six years,” Mugabe told his party’s central committee recently. “Let that sink into Britain [Zimbabwe’s former colonial ruler] and its surrogates in the MDC.”
While few observers expect the talks to resolve the election dispute, the mere fact that the rival parties sat at the same table is considered progress–of a sort. Outside governments are placing mounting pressure on the two groups to reconcile amid growing evidence of massive electoral fraud and rising violence in the country. Thirteen people have died and hundreds of opposition supporters have been beaten since the presidential poll; thousands more are on the run for fear of attack from progovernment militia. Since the start of the year, political violence has claimed 48 lives, 31 of them MDC supporters according to local rights groups. Others have been assaulted, tortured, raped or evicted from their homes, mostly by ruling-party militants.
Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s ruler for 22 years, remains determined to crush any protest against the election. He outlawed election protests scheduled for last weekend and security forces arrested almost 500 people for planning or attending the demonstrations.
The protest action followed growing evidence that Mugabe’s “victory” last month-denounced by Tsvangirai as “daylight robbery”–was rigged. Some of ZANU-PF’s dubious practices were documented in the run-up to the election, prompting the United States and the 15-nation European Union to slap “smart sanctions” against Mugabe and some 20 of his top colleagues. Among the international concerns: Mugabe’s partisan police force, unrelenting government propaganda on state-run broadcast media (the primary information source for most Zimbabweans), growing oppression in the form of harsh laws and crackdowns on the MDC and the independent judiciary and media.
Polling was further compromised by an array of irregularities, among them differences in the number of votes tallied in 120 voting districts and those officially announced; repeated–and confusing–changes in electoral laws; the removal of polling stations in MDC areas; a chaotic voters’ registry, and the arrest, harassment and beating of thousands of MDC supporters.
An observer mission from the Commonwealth–a 54-member association consisting of Britain and its former colonies–subsequently denounced the election, saying it “did not adequately allow for a free expression of will by the electors.” The group suspended Zimbabwe’s membership for a year and a troika of member nations–Nigeria, Australia and South Africa–resolved to seek a negotiated political settlement over the dispute. “If [the two parties] fail to reach agreement, or if any agreement is repudiated by one side or the other, then the troika will become directly engaged,” says MDC official Eddie Cross.
For now, Mugabe’s fear of further foreign involvement–or the fear of a permanent expulsion from the Commonwealth club he holds so dear–may be all that’s keeping his party at the negotiating table. “It is very unlikely that [the talks] will result in the resolution of the crises the country is facing,” says Harare political analyst John Makumbe. “I think both sides are playing mouse, I don’t think their hearts are in it.” That may be so. But right now, they’re unquestionably the only game in town.
