After being
pummeled in the last election, and riven with infighting and recrimination in
the months since, Zimbabwe's political opposition is at its lowest ebb in a
decade. The Daily Maverick asks the obvious question: if not
Zanu, then who? The answer makes for disheartening reading - unless your name's
Robert Mugabe, and you've got a country you want to keep running.
It wasn't just losing last year's
election that dealt a knock-out blow to Zimbabwe's main opposition groups, in
particular Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change faction (MDC-T);
it was how the election was lost, by such a wide margin that even if Zanu-PF
had rigged the elections - and we're not saying they did, although we have our
suspicions - it did not need to.
Look at it this way: despite
everything that Robert Mugabe has done, despite the economic calamities he has
presided over the and the steady erosion of basic rights he has legislated, a
majority of Zimbabweans would rather have Mugabe and his henchmen in charge
than trust in any of the alternatives.
For Morgan Tsvangirai, this
realisation must be a particularly bitter pill. The veteran opposition leader,
now 62, came as close as anyone has...
Read the full
story on the Daily Maverick website.
No comments:
Post a Comment