Opinion: Zimbabwe's opportunity

A Times Editorial

Zimbabwe's opportunity

Ripped apart by vigilante violence, and with its economy on the brink of disintegration, Zimbabwe has managed to hold its elections. Led by Morgan Tsvangirai, a trade unionist, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change put together a coalition of blacks, whites and other ethnic minorities to take 57 seats -- enough to stop President Robert Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party from imposing legislation or changing the constitution, as they've been doing for 20 years. Mugabe will have to work with people he is accustomed to describing as "enemies of the state." Now, elected by the people, they are as much the state as he is.

That the election happened at all is almost miraculous. For months before polling day, opposition supporters were intimidated, kidnapped, assaulted and sometimes killed. Gangs of Mugabe loyalists calling themselves veterans of the Zimbabwean War of Independence (though most were far too young to have participated in the struggle against Ian Smith's illegitimate government) started occupying white-owned farms in the name of land redistribution. Whites suspected of backing the MDC were raped, pistol-whipped and sometimes shot. Black supporters of the MDC were tortured by ZANU-PF thugs who announced openly that anyone planning to vote for the opposition was liable to be beaten or worse.

Though the international observers monitoring the election said in most places the actual voting was calm and orderly, there were reports of electoral rolls stolen and altered by ZANU-PF, poll workers bullied and voters in rural areas threatened by government supporters wielding iron bars. Monitors from the European Union refused to call the elections "free and fair," causing howls of protest from the Mugabe government. The South African monitors were more generous in their assessment, insisting the elections were above reproach. Of course, the Mbeki government, mindful of their own land reform problems and the fragile state of the Zimbabwean economy, has been trying to nudge Mugabe toward greater democracy without angering him. It's a pity that Zimbabwe's neighbor and close ally could not more strongly condemn the violence that has been tearing the country apart.

Still, Zimbabwe survived polling day, the turnout was almost 70 percent (a rate that puts the U.S. to shame) and, though the MDC's Tsvangirai plans to challenge the results of 20 races in the courts, indications are that both the opposition and the MDC intend to try and work together. Even Mugabe, belatedly facing up to the voters' dissatisfaction with his autocratic ways, his ruinous fiscal policies, and his brutal disregard for the rule of law, has said that he wants reconciliation. He had better be serious. In two years, he comes up for re-election, and Morgan Tsvangirai will challenge him for the presidency. In the meantime, if Zimbabwe cannot sort out its unemployment problems, eschew the corruption that has handed the supposedly "redistributed" land to Mugabe's cronies, and embrace political diversity, the nation will implode. After all, 32 people died for this election. Zimbabwe has a window of opportunity to become a mature democracy and fulfill its early promise as an example for all of Africa. Let's hope the nation seizes its chance.