Zimbabwe Opposition Demands Mugabe Quit to Avoid Violence

Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, April 6, 2008; A15

HARARE, Zimbabwe, April 5 -- Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai declared Saturday that Zimbabwe "does not need another war" and demanded that President Robert Mugabe step down rather than contest a second round of voting that many expect will turn violent.

Tsvangirai called for negotiations, with the assistance of the African Union and international groups, to end an eight-day-old political stalemate that began last weekend with a historic loss for Mugabe and his ruling party. With the presidential vote headed for an apparent runoff, Tsvangirai warned that a new election would deepen polarization in a country with a history of political violence.

Tsvangirai vowed to protect the jobs of state employees, the pensions of military veterans and the land of peasants who received farms during the nation's chaotic land redistribution in 2000. He also offered amnesty to Mugabe for past misdeeds.

"I want to say to President Mugabe: Please rest your mind," Tsvangirai said at a news conference in Harare, the capital. "The new Zimbabwe guarantees your safety."

Tsvangirai accused Mugabe of preparing to unleash a vicious campaign of political violence reminiscent of the brutal election seasons of 2000, 2002 and, to a lesser extent, 2005. The charge came as clusters of riot police with helmets and clubs appeared across Harare. Veterans of Zimbabwe's liberation war, a feared group loosely controlled by Mugabe, have vowed to deploy to resist opposition gains.

The comments, Tsvangirai's most expansive since the vote, came just days after he publicly embraced the idea of a runoff vote and one day after Mugabe's party endorsed the idea. On Saturday, Tsvangirai said he was reluctant to participate in a second round amid signs that the president might resort to violence to stay in power.

Ruling party officials dismissed Tsvangirai's allegations and questioned his motives in seeking to avoid a runoff. They also criticized repeated claims by opposition leaders that Tsvangirai won the presidential election by a wide enough margin to avoid a runoff.

"This is one of the dirty tricks that they've always used," said Didymus Mutasa, a Mugabe cabinet minister and top ruling party official. "They want to get into power unconstitutionally."

South African President Thabo Mbeki, who led a southern African regional mediation effort over the past year to resolve Zimbabwe's political crisis, said that now was the "time to wait. Let's see the outcome of the election results."

Mugabe's party, the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front, known as ZANU-PF, has vowed a much more vigorous campaign in the second round of voting. Many Zimbabweans have interpreted that as a return to the days when the ruling party's youth militias and secret police threatened and intimidated opposition supporters with kidnappings, beatings and firebombings.

The ruling party also has stepped up allegations that Tsvangirai intends to return farms seized during the land invasions to their former white owners, many of whom fled the country. The Herald newspaper, a government mouthpiece, has reported that whites are massing near Zimbabwe's borders, ready to return should the opposition win.

Meanwhile, New York Times reporter Barry Bearak remained in custody after being charged Friday with violating Zimbabwe's strict journalism laws.

Another U.S. citizen, Dileepan Sivapathasundaram, a program director with the National Democratic Institute, has been detained since Thursday. The organization said in a statement released Saturday that Sivapathasundaram was questioned for a third day "and was released for a second night to the custody of U.S. officials with the requirement that he report again to the Harare Central Police Station on Sunday morning."

No official results have been released from the presidential election, but independent monitors as well as ruling and opposition party officials say Tsvangirai won more votes than Mugabe.

Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change has said he topped the 50 percent required for a first-round victory, but ruling party officials have disputed that. An analysis by an independent monitoring group put Tsvangirai slightly below 50 percent but acknowledged that, with the margin of error, he may have reached it. Mugabe, the group said, got 42 percent compared with 8 percent for an independent candidate.

Election law requires that a runoff, if needed, be held within 21 days of the first round, but government funds are reportedly so low that organizing another vote so soon could be impractical.

Diplomatic and other sources say Mugabe is considering using emergency powers to delay the vote for 90 days to improve his chance of winning. Opposition officials and some analysts say such a delay would allow the ruling party to intimidate voters into supporting it, or at least not voting for the opposition.

"Robert Mugabe is really fooling himself to think he can beat the people of Zimbabwe for 90 days and win," said political analyst John Makumbe, a longtime government critic.

In official results for legislative races, the opposition narrowly won control of the 210-seat parliament, a historic shift for a nation dominated since its birth in 1980 by a single party. The ruling and opposition parties split the 60-member Senate with opposition forces, with each getting 30 seats.

In his remarks Saturday, Tsvangirai acknowledged the crucial role played in Zimbabwe's history by Mugabe, 84, who led the guerrilla movement that brought about the end of white-supremacist rule in this former British colony.

Tsvangirai said Mugabe was part of Africa's "generation of founding fathers," which includes such liberation heroes as Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia and Samora Machel of Mozambique, all of whom are former presidents.

Of Mugabe, Tsvangirai said, "His generation has served and gone."