Will Zimbabwe’s Messy Election Get Messier?

• DAVID B MOOREThis is no way to end an election that promised to bring a bright new post-coup and post-Robert Mugabe dawn to a blighted Zimbabwe – 50.8% for Zanu-PF’s Emmerson Mnangagwa to 44,3% for the contending Movement for Democratic Change-Alliance’s (MDC-Alliance) Nelson Chamisa.

After a drawn out count for the last constituency, a suspect tally for the supreme ruler.

As for the Zanu-PF MPs’ sweeps across the rural areas resulting in a more than two-thirds majority in the lower house of assembly (155 to 53), fears triggered by memories of the violent 2008 run-off remain real.

Mnangagwa has been making gestures to Chamisa for “unity” or to play a crucial role in Zimbabwe’s present and in its unfolding future.

He seemed furious when the police converged on journalists attending Chamisa’s presser at the subtly luxurious Bronte Hotel: The police apologised on Twitter very quickly.

Yet dozens or more MDC-Alliance supporters are running for their lives, or hiding in safe houses. This, just days after soldiers – not police – shot and killed at least six people.

What start is this for a regime promising Lazarus-like revival for the ruling party and its friends around the world – not to mention ordinary Zimbabweans?

Yet there is an alternative: If Mnangagwa actually has the power he could call off the attack dogs and let the courts decide the merits, or not, of Chamisa’s case that the poll was rigged. This might not itself result in a peaceful resolution, given rumblings that a coup is in the making led by vice president and (unconstitutionally) minister of defence, Constantino Chiwenga. But it would be better than allowing the soldiers out onto the streets in force.

And it just could be that this is the tack. The MDC-Alliance’s lawyers will present their case on 10 August. Mnangagwa is facing a sharp fork in the road. One hope he takes the right one.

The crackdown’s current phase started on 2 August.

As the election results were trickling in, drunken soldiers beat up equally inebriated MDC-Alliance supporters in the ‘high density suburbs’ (poverty-riddled townships or locations) around Harare, where the opposition party did overwhelmingly well.

So much for the hypothesis that the poor soldiers would support their equally suffering brothers and sisters with the long-struggling opposition, poised to take the chalice only a few months after Morgan Tsvangirai’s death.

The crackdown continued the next day.

An MDC-Alliance candidate in Chegutu challenged his loss, won on the recount, and proceeded to run away from rabid soldiers. Many more were chased in Harare’s townships, Marondera, and Manicaland. The Financial Times reported more than 60 arrests, pointing to Chiwenga as the leader of the shakedown. It hinted at a coup – no surprise to many Zimbabweans.

Chiwenga has been the elephant in the room for a very long time. Many Zimbabweans say Mnangagwa lives in fear of him. Lower ranking members of Zanu-PF in propaganda and intelligence don’t dare challenge this mercurial man with a history of suicide attempts, and more.

Promoted to armed forces head by Mugabe well beyond his seniority and capability, but kept to one-year contracts to ensure his fealty, he waited until Grace Mugabe pushed her doddering husband into firing his long-time ally Mnangagwa – who was then vice president – in early November last year.

Chiwenga returned from a China trip and then helped Mnangagwa in what the American Jesuit magazine called the unexpected, but peaceful, transition away from the nonagenarian ruler.

Chiwenga has kicked out a good number of Central Intelligence Organisation operatives, suspected of loyalty to the ‘Generation-40’ faction, which lost out with the coup.

So too with the police, pared down through the year, That’s why the soldiers were called in last week.

He’s been awaiting his due – the presidency – ever since, and he might be in a hurry.

A demotion could ensue if Mnangagwa takes the royal road to respectability via a pleasant deal with the MDC-Alliance, whom the recalcitrant ‘war vets’ consider a cabal of imperialist puppets.

It’s surprising that the local and international cheerleaders for the ‘military assisted transition’, with a lot riding on peace and goodwill after the election, seemed blissfully unaware of the power behind the already tarnished throne.

South African military intelligence are supposed to be well-connected with their counterparts to the north, and should not be prone to think like the British.

The defenders of diminishing empire are more likely to think like Lord Soames, temporary governor of Rhodesia as Zimbabwe was on the cusp. His comments as Robert Mugabe came to power on the wave of a violent election in 1980 included the fact that he wasn’t surprised at bit of bloodshed.

British officials, and their global compatriots, presumably don’t think like that anymore. But even if they don’t, they should have known that coups are prone to eat their own children.

Yet there could be another road to take.

There is still time for Mnangagwa to change tack. The MDC-Alliance’s contention that the election was cooked will be tested in the courts.

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