There is, no doubt, frantic strategising going on behind the Presidency’s perpetually closed doors, but Mbeki’s admittedly rare public appearances and utterances since then have given the impression of a man calmly conducting business as usual, even if all the evidence is to the contrary.
His recent mediation efforts in Zimbabwe are a case in point. Â It has been obvious to all but the most myopic of observers that President Robert Mugabe has been stringing Mbeki along for years, making promises in his presence and breaking them at will as soon as his back is turned. Yet Mbeki returned from Harare two weeks ago making the same “frank and fruitful” sort of noises that have made him look so foolish in the past.
This time the words were that he had “no reason to question the commitment of all parties” to breaking the deadlock over whether a free and fair election was possible without key constitutional changes. And of course, Mbeki had hardly returned from the perennial shortages and power failures of Harare to the chronic electricity shortages that have hit SA, than Mugabe was proving him hopelessly naive yet again.
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai arrested, opposition supporters beaten up, and the unilateral declaration of a March 29 poll date for presidential and parliamentary elections everybody knows will be rigged. Why the MDC still even talks to Mbeki is a mystery – his appeasement of Mugabe has put them in an impossible position.
If they boycott the elections, Mugabe will win a sixth term to continue his destruction of the country; if they participate without the safeguards constitutional changes would provide, they risk losing due to intimidation and fraud.
Heads I win, tails you lose. That is the kind of toss-up Mugabe likes, and that is what Mbeki has continually handed him on a platter. Enough already.
Â
Post published in: Uncategorized