Zimbabwe: Tsvangirai's Eleventh-Hour Capitulation

All things considered, Tsvangirai’s withdrawal, Sunday, from Zimbabwe’s Presidential runoff elections, less than a week away now, is a betrayal of the worst kind. He has betrayed the memory and the sacrifice of all the martyrs of Zimbabwe’s second liberation; and of many others in Africa and elsewhere who have too often been betrayed by the very leaders in whose names they, in effect, died. And he has betrayed the constitutional process that should anchor the larger democratic process in an organized society. He has done so under some quaint reading, perhaps, of the Gandhi’s tradition of non-violence; or under the mere guise of that.

Now tyrant Mugabe is going to gain undeserved, and almost incontestable, victory. Obscene as that victory will be, Mugabe will now not be under any pressure, such as he might have been, to explain away his declaration of victory, or any discrepancy between the votes he got last March and those he might have claimed in the runoff. Tsvangirai has declared that victory for him, and has legitimized Mugabe’s new term – and the pathological leadership that it perpetuates.

Tsvangirai forgets that he was in the runoff not by the simple declaration of his candidacy (such as came into play in March 2008), but because the people had forced a runoff on Mugabe – and only he was constitutionally entitled to challenge the tyrant in the second round. One would have thought that he was keenly aware of his historic duty in this matter – a duty to run – and of the historicity of this moment for Zimbabwe, and for Africa. One would have thought that he felt, deeply, equal to the task; but clearly, one thought wrong. Instead, he has become hostage to fear. There is no profile in courage here.

I have given up on him, who has given up on the runoff. While Mugabe mockingly pleads with him to not give up the electoral fight, Tsvangirai will now be hoping, it seems, that what he has failed to do he can get Mbeki, whose incompetence is increasingly obvious and increasingly frustrating, to do for him; and if not Mbeki, then SADC; and if not SADC, then AU. Or perhaps the UN! That’s timidity itself. No one is going to do it for you, Morgan!

Tsvangirai has become, just so plainly, too terrified to go on. Much as he may try, he will not explain away this surrender. For the rest of us, it is his loss of nerve that is so disempowering. You see, you cannot win when you capitulate!

The best thing he can do right now is to change his mind and run -- against Mugabe! It is not too late. If he does not, it might just be too late to save his own leadership -- and Zimbabwe!