“Whisper it quietly,” says Daniel Howden in The Independent. But Zimbabwe may be witnessing a despot’s final hours in office. Aides to Robert Mugabe, the president and Zanu-PF party leader, and the opposition’s Morgan Tsvangirai are said to be negotiating an “exit package” for the 84-year-old president. This may include immunity from prosecution.
There has been speculation that otherwise he could face war crimes charges over the slaughter of 20,000 opponents in Matabeleland in 1983. It could also mean guarantees relating to the fortune he has amassed during his 28-year rule, during which he is thought to have stashed millions while reducing once-prosperous Zimbabwe to starvation and misery. When he goes, he will leave behind him a country with 90% unemployment, an average life expectancy of well below 40, four million people close to starvation and an inflation rate of over 100,000%.
Unfortunately, confusion still reigns over the elections. According to the country’s state newspaper, The Herald, the presidential election is likely to go to a second round as neither candidate is expected to gain more than 50% of the vote.
The Times, however, reports that late on Tuesday night, Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, told reporters that he had achieved “above the constitutional requirement” to avoid a run-off, but would be happy to contest one anyway. He also vowed to wait for the Election Commission to announce official results before declaring victory
At least Mugabe will struggle to massage these results, says Peter Godwin in The Independent. He’s a “master election-rigger”, but thanks to the new electoral laws specifying that ballot results be posted on the walls of the 9,000 polling stations, he is “really hamstrung” this time as opposition representatives have wasted no time in photographing them.
If he does cling to power, the people of Zimbabwe must take their country’s fate into their own hands, says The Guardian. Zimbabwe’s neighbours, particularly South Africa, must also take a stand. “What about Britain?” asks Bronwen Maddox in The Times. We must shake off any lingering colonial inhibitions – this “huge” disaster nullifies concerns that our involvement is “merely a ghostly echo of the spirit of 30 years ago”. On past form, Tsvangirai will need some help, says David Blair in The Daily Telegraph. After losing the last election he denounced the contest as “daylight robbery”, but failed to lead a single protest. If Mugabe wins this contest, Tsvangirai might “huff, puff – and do nothing at all”.
It won’t come to that, says The Daily Telegraph. While it would be “foolhardy to write the man off”, Mugabe’s days look numbered. The focus should now be on how to rebuild Zimbabwe – and here the international community faces a “stern test”. As the former colonial power, Britain will be “expected to take the lead”. Meanwhile, the EU and America will be “required to do the heavy lifting on the humanitarian front”. The chaos of post-Saddam Iraq hardly bodes well, but we trust that a “fully thought-through” blueprint is in place in the Foreign Office and Department for International Development to set this fertile and mineral-rich country back on the path to prosperity and security.