LONDON'No one was particularly surprised when Robert Mugabe, the incumbent candidate and leader of Zimbabwe for 22 years, was declared victor in the troubled presidential election last week. In fact, after a campaign marked by intimidation, smearing and outright fraud, the only question on most minds was why Mugabe bothered holding an election at all.
Mugabe's efforts to steal the election were wide-ranging. The national press was suppressed early on, preventing any nasty criticism of his policies. A flurry of last-minute \electoral reforms"" were passed. Gangs connected to his ZANU-PF party physically intimidated thousands, leading some to believe that nearly a third of Zimbabweans had either experienced or witnessed violence towards potential opposition supporters.
A week before the election, Mugabe introduced a clearly doctored videotape as ""evidence"" that his opponent plotted his assassination, accused the opposition of treason and had him arrested'a technique that has worked for him before. When election day finally arrived, voters from his rural support base were bussed to polling centers. In urban, educated areas where Mugabe's opposition has almost full support, polling center locations were not revealed until the last minute, voters waited hours in long lines because there were not enough booths and countless were simply turned away. Undoubtedly, even more chose not to risk showing up.
After the votes came in and the official polling commission declared Mugabe the winner with 54 percent of the vote, his opponent, Morgan Tsvangirai, cried foul. Most of the developed world and the European Union, whose election observers were expelled by Mugabe weeks ago, couldn't help but agree. Disturbingly, though, some of the most important African leaders remained silent or legitimized the desperate Mugabe's election farce.
The election monitors from Nigeria and South Africa'nearly the only monitoring groups remaining in the country by the time the election actually occurred'both endorsed Mugabe's victory. The South African committee said, in effect, that while the election came short of being a clean fight, it was close enough. The Nigerian mission went further, claiming that it ""recorded no incidence that was sufficient to threaten the integrity and outcome of the election in areas monitored by the team."" The president of Kenya rushed to congratulate Mugabe. And, perhaps most disgusting, President Mbeki of South Africa, one of Africa's model democracies, chose to remain silent rather than decry the stolen election.
In his efforts to retain his own control of Zimbabwe, Mugabe has routinely played on racial tensions to draw attention away from his party's faults and failures. In the absence of coherent policy he has encouraged land seizures of white-owned farms. It appears now that he is trying this same game on an international scale, accusing critical Western democracies of being white imperialists intent on controlling African politics in a blatant effort to confuse the issue. And, sadly, it appears to be working.
When Mugabe began to seize privately owned land, investors fled and Zimbabwe's already sunken economy began to look hopeless. Who will invest in a country that does not respect property rights?
When he subordinated the values of democracy to postcolonial name-calling, he did worse. At a time when Zimbabwe is in severe economic trouble, developed nations and the World Bank will be understandably hesitant to provide direct aid. Who will lend money to an autocrat that has now demonstrated what little regard he has for the future of his country?
And worse, the legitimate leaders of Africa have allowed themselves to be lured into Mugabe's race politics, sending a dangerous message. That Mugabe played dirty is impossible to deny'in fact, even those that are endorsing his victory admit to it. But they have given Mugabe's paranoid rants against former colonial powers precedence over concerns about democracy and fairness. So Mugabe is left to celebrate his so-called victory, and the rest of the world is left to wonder what democracy really means in Africa.
But there is an even sadder side to this story. Twenty-two years ago, Robert Mugabe was a celebrated leader of the liberation movement in Zimbabwe. He helped create strong educational and health systems, and for a time he symbolized hope for prosperity. Last week he disenfranchised hundreds of thousands'perhaps millions'of Zimbabweans. And Zimbabwe's neighbors shook his hand.
