Ndibele tribes here killed at least 20,000 in the mid-1980s – a sign of just how far Mr. Mugabe would go to hold onto power. Small wonder then that the people of Matabeleland – and especially in the quiet regional capital, Bulawayo – view Saturday's presidential elections with a mix of hope and realism, and the knowledge that Mugabe will not go without a fight. "If Mugabe wins, we'll have economic disaster in Zimbabwe, complete disaster," says Gordon Moyo, director of Bulawayo Agenda, a democracy-building nonprofit in Bulawayo. "If [former finance minister Simba Makoni] wins, we'll have unrest, because Mugabe will fight. Either way, civil society should continue to press for our rights, and join hands with other democratic forces to make sure this government is delegitimized. Democracy is not final until it respects the will of the people," he says.
Zimbabwe has never been so close to economic collapse – and oddly, to political renewal – as it will be this month. An inflation rate of 100,000 percent, the result of socialist land redistribution, mismanagement, corruption, and the withdrawal of Western financial support, has created unspeakable hardship for the Zimbabwean people. But hardship has also hardened the feelings of many Zimbabweans that the time has come for a change in leadership. The question now is how Mugabe's own party, the ZANU-PF – which controls the Army, police, the intelligence services, the election commission, and nearly all news media outlets – will respond to the public mood.
| My guess is that Bob will "win" the election by the simple expedient of counting the votes the way he wants them counted. Simba will go into exile, the state will crack down on MDC, Tsvangirai will get a few more broken ribs, and when Bob finally dies -- of old age -- someone like Simba will take over as Bob Lite. |