Zimbabwe - Elections 2000 - Sustainable Democracy

Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe, 76, returned to the scene of his old nationalist triumphs today (Saturday) as the country’s sixth Parliamentary election campaign moved into its final week.

Highfields, the second oldest township in Harare and the Zimbabwe Grounds playing field, were the site of Mugabe’s triumphal return from the bush in 1980 when 150,000 people jammed these same grassy fields to welcome home their conquering hero after the long, vicious liberation war that toppled the white settler regime of Rhodesia’s Ian Smith and began the process for an independent Zimbabwe. Mugabe still owns a house in Highfields where the black nationalist movement plotted and planned its struggle for freedom through the long years of white oppression.

Today the old warrior was his usual combative self, lashing out at the former British colonizers and the present-day government of Britain’s Tony Blair, white commercial farmers, the international globalized economy and the country’s newly emergent opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which has turned this election into a more competitive political situation than ever before.

Ironically, or perhaps intentionally, the MDC and its leader Morgan Tsvangirai, will hold his main Harare rally tomorrow (Sunday) in nearby Rufaro Stadium in Mbare.

Observers and pundits will be comparing the size of the crowds for some hint of the election’s outcome. MDC is running a full slate of 120 candidates against the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) that has held a stranglehold on the 150-seat Parliament since independence in 1980. Mugabe, as the country’s head of state and government has another two years to run in his presidential term.

The campaign has been bitter and often violent. At least 30 people have been killed in political violence and now politicians are urging their followers - there are 15 parties on the ballot papers but only ZANU-PF and MDC are given any chance of substantial election victories - to cool down their often uncontrolled followers and make this last week of campaigning peaceful. The elections will be held June 24 and 25 and will be heavily monitored by some 16,000 international, regional and national observers, as well as an unusually large media corps.

Mugabe had a much smaller audience today than in 1980, somewhat less than 10,000 party faithful and a coterie of cabinet ministers turned out within as tight security to cheer the man who has dominated Zimbabwean public life since he was elected overwhelmingly in 1980. Then his startled the world with his words of reconciliation towards Smith and his Rhodesian Front. Today he was much less conciliatory towards the country’s remaining 70,000 whites that still control much of the economy and huge tracts of highly productive farmland.

He spoke of Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle as now coming to an end with the acquisition of white-owned land.

“After political independence, what we now need is economic liberation.” He said land is wealth, not just because of its agricultural value but also because it contains all the precious minerals and holds the water that people need.

Referring to British claims that by acquiring white-owned farms, his government was being racist he said: “If your whites want to stay here, they should accept our rule … White man’s land in Africa? Where is the black man’ s land in Europe? … they (whites) should accept the share of land that we give them…”

Indeed, the issue of land redistribution and farm invasions by his old comrades-in-arms, the Zimbabwe Liberation War Veterans Association, has sparked much of the tension between races and with the British government which Mugabe blames for the faltering economy and the rise of opposition popularity.

He dealt with all the issues under a bright afternoon sky: the land issue which has seen some 1,500 commercial farms occupied by the veterans and their supporters; the weak economy which has 60 percent inflation, massive unemployment, very little foreign exchange and a faltering dollar which he blamed on the lack of black control of manufacturing; white racism which he said kept the majority of the country’s 12 million people in servitude and the foreign media which has tarnished Zimbabwe’s good name around the world;

Mugabe blamed western donors, which funded the country’s reforms programmes that started in 1990, for the country’s woes.

“We will re-introduce price controls immediately after the elections,” he said to the applause of voters who have seen their standard of living steadily slide since the Zimbabwe dollar started plummeting in 1997.

He dismissed the MDC which was born out of the labour movement barely 10 months ago and which has captured the attention of those demanding change. He accused Tsvangirai, a former union boss and his followers, of being “cousins of the white man. Whites can never be our cousins, “ he said. “We can live in harmony if they want it, but they must know that the black man rules this country.”

The president acknowledged problems in his own party and blasted some of his colleagues for in-fighting saying they needed to unite against a single opponent.

This first election of the new millennium brings Zimbabwe to a crossroads. ZANU-PF, despite its disunity in some areas - a number of former MPs are running as independents - still has a mighty political machine and is thought to retain much of its rural strength. The upstart MDC has suffered from inexperience and difficulty in reaching the widest number of potential voters. Its popularity in urban areas may offset some of these difficulties. The critical week of campaigning left in this sixth election will likely tell the final tale. (SARDC)