Eyes on Zimbabwe
An MDC party member with his face wrapped in party campaign materials at a mass rally on the outskirts of Harare. MDC is the opposition party to Mugabe's ZANU-PF.
Credit: Halden Krog/Polaris
Zimbabwe's people are struggling to survive the social, political, and economic disaster wrought by Robert Mugabe, and his ZANU-PF party, who have ruled the country for almost three decades. The country's governing institutions are in ruins. Police informants and security forces are everywhere, and even intimidate Zimbabweans living in exile. The Mugabe regime's blatant corruption and economic mismanagement have plunged more than 90 percent of the population into poverty.
Mugabe's land reform—a botched attempt to redistribute vast swaths of farmland owned by the nation's white minority—has ravaged the country's predominantly agrarian economic base. As a result, millions of Zimbabweans are going hungry. Hyperinflation—at a rate of more than 100,000% and still growing—has decimated savings and stifled economic growth. Almost a quarter of the population as fled the country, choosing to become refugees in neighboring countries to survive.
From Liberation to Repression
Robert Mugabe was one of the leaders of the liberation movement that fought white-minority rule in Zimbabwe's predecessor state, Rhodesia, after Ian Smith's government unilaterally declared independence from Britain in 1965. After more than a decade of warfare, peace negotiations initiated majority black rule in 1980. Brutal government suppression of internal dissent marred the decade that followed. Violence consumed the lives of more than 20,000 people and destroyed the opposition ZAPU party. In 1987, Mugabe's ZANU party merged with the few remaining members of ZAPU to create the ZANU-PF, and Zimbabwe became a de-facto one-party state.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) was formed in 1999, largely in response to civil unrest caused by the deteriorating economy. Following MDC's unexpected success in the 2000 parliamentary polls, Mugabe's regime enacted a series of crackdowns targeting political opponents. The repression has continued to this day. Presidential elections in 2002 and parliamentary elections in 2005, both marred by violence and intimidation and condemned by international observers as flawed, led to further consolidation of Mugabe's hold on power.
In recent years, the regime imposed a series of laws restricting the Zimbabweans' civil and political rights, including freedom of assembly, freedom of the press, and freedom of speech. In 2007, the government won the power to monitor letters, email, and other private communications, which dealt a serious blow to civil society activity.
The March 2007 Crackdown
On March 11, 2007, government forces responded with brutal force to a peaceful prayer meeting called by opposition and civil society activists. One young man, Gift Tandare, was shot and killed. The police arrested, beat, and tortured scores of people.
In the aftermath of the crackdown, the Southern African Development Community initiated a mediation process between ZANU-PF and MDC, led by South African president Thabo Mbeki. The mediation effort was largely undermined by fractures in the opposition movement, questionable political will on the part of the ZANU-PF, the absence of civil society participation in the negotiations, and the government's adoption repressive laws to maintain its hold on power.
Zimbabwe Votes
In the run-up to the March 2008 presidential, parliamentary, and local elections, the regime limited the opposition's access to the media, used food aid to buy votes, and issued threats from the police and security forces that an opposition victory would not be allowed.
Yet millions of Zimbabweans still turned out to vote on March 29th, and international pressure forced the government to agree that results should be counted and posted at individual polling stations. Some 8,000 Zimbabweans, organized by a civil society alliance, took photos of the vote totals, allowing a parallel vote count that suggests ZANU-PF lost the parliament and that Mugabe came second in the presidential race.
But Mugabe is still clinging to power. The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission failed to release the results of the presidential vote for more than a month, leaving the country in limbo and severely damaging the legitimacy of the vote-counting process. With riot police out in force and journalists and opposition members under arrest, the regime eventually announced an election result requiring a runoff vote, which is currently scheduled for June 27th. Human rights groups have documented widespread reprisals against opposition voters and activists in Zimbabwe, raising further concerns that the runoff vote will not be free and fair.
