Resolving the question of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s fate may hold the key to breaking the impasse over Zimbabwe’s disputed presidential vote.
Mugabe has not himself suggested he would be willing to step aside if he were granted immunity for alleged human rights abuses and allowed to fade into comfortable retirement.
But others in Africa have made that case for him — saying that as a one-time lion of African liberation he deserves a dignified exit, and that other African strongmen have followed that path.
Recent flexibility within his own party could signal movement toward such an arrangement. The strongest sign has been a proposal by Mugabe’s ZANU-PF to share power with the opposition.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change rejects that, saying its leader Morgan Tsvangirai won outright. But the ZANU-PF overture hints at a dawning realization in the Mugabe camp that it has lost its iron grip on power.
As the political camps circle each other, election officials have yet to release the vote results, and the opposition says the delay is part of a plot by Mugabe to cling to power while his people suffer international isolation and an economy spiraling out of control.
Increasingly, it appears that unless Mugabe is assured of a future, his people won’t have one.
The top US envoy on Africa, Jendayi Frazer, told reporters in southern Africa this week that Tsvangirai had won the right to lead any unity government.
As to Mugabe, she said: “If he does the right thing, he should be allowed to stay in Zimbabwe with the dignity of a former president.”
A proposal that ZANU-PF and the Movement for Democratic Change share power in a government headed by Mugabe surfaced in an unlikely quarter on Wednesday: a column in Zimbabwe’s state-run Herald newspaper usually devoted to denunciations of the opposition.
On Thursday, the column was back to accusing the Movement for Democratic Change of working “to frustrate land reforms and protect the interests of the minority landed classes,” and called the unity government proposal unfeasible.
But it is significant that the debate is being played out in ZANU-PF’s mouthpiece.
The idea of a coalition government — akin to the solution that helped calm postelection violence in Kenya earlier this year — seems to have galvanized diplomacy.
In Zambia on Thursday, a government spokesman said a national unity government in neighboring Zimbabwe could be a “welcome decision” if it can unite the country. The Zimbabwean opposition has called on Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa to help mediate their nation’s crisis.
Frazer, who helped mediate the Kenyan solution, met on Thursday with officials in South Africa, whose President Thabo Mbeki has been a key mediator in Zimbabwe. On Friday, she was to visit Zambia and planned a stop in Angola as part of her Zimbabwe diplomacy.
At independence, Mugabe was hailed for campaigning for racial reconciliation, and for bringing education and health to millions.
Today, he regularly denounces whites — at independence celebrations last week, he accused them of plotting to recolonize the country.
“The man invokes conflicting emotions,” Tsvangirai said in a recent interview with The Associated Press. “The transformation he’s gone through, from hero to villain, is unprecedented.”
Mugabe, though, isn’t a villain to everyone. He holds fellow African leaders in thrall with fiery rhetoric at regional meetings.
Tsvangirai told reporters in Nigeria he respected Mugabe as a liberation leader. Perhaps one who deserves a cushy retirement on a farm somewhere in Zimbabwe.
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