Mbeki's shame; if the president of South Africa had an iota of honour or courage or sense, he could have squeezed Robert Mugabe out of power several years ago

Can Thabo Mbeki, South Africa's lame-duck president, truly believe there is no crisis in Zimbabwe? If so, it must be concluded that there is a crisis also in South Africa - a moral one. For it is unconscionable that the man who leads by far the most powerful country in Africa should shrug off the horror that persists in neighbouring Zimbabwe as a procedural hiccup in a perfectly normal election.

By every objective calculation, Robert Mugabe, despite using an array of dirty tricks in a presidential contest nearly three weeks ago, was trounced by the challenger, Morgan Tsvangirai.

As the Economist went to press, Zimbabwe's electoral commission, plainly under duress, is still refusing to divulge the figures. Can Mbeki seriously suggest, with a straight face, that the result would have been held back if Mugabe had not lost?

If Mbeki had an iota of honour or courage or sense, he could have squeezed Mugabe out of power several years ago - just as South Africa's leaders pulled the plug on the nastily bigoted Rhodesian regime of Ian Smith three decades ago, albeit after succouring it for far too long.

Most of the other leaders in southern Africa - with a few notable exceptions, including Jacob Zuma, Mbeki's rival and possible successor - have been equally feeble and downright dishonest.

By failing to come together to denounce Mugabe unequivocally, they have not only prolonged Zimbabwe's agony; they have damaged the whole of southern Africa, both materially and in terms of Africa's reputation.

As many as 4 million Zimbabweans, one-third of the population, may have fled the ruins of their once blooming country. Western governments are rightly poised to offer generous backing to a new government that would represent the wishes of Zimbabwe's battered survivors.

The rich world also seeks, with offers of all kinds of aid, to bring other countries in Africa out of their poverty. But why should it help the governments in the region that seem blind to the monstrosity of Mugabe, whose venality has helped impoverish much of the rest of the region too?

Why should Africa as a whole be taken seriously when its leaders, on the whole, refuse to co-operate to remove such a cancer from their midst?

Mbeki's apologists will argue that his vaunted "quiet" diplomacy has worked - or might yet work. They say that he helped cajole Mugabe into holding an election in the first place.

As a result of negotiations that Mbeki's people oversaw between representatives of Mugabe and Tsvangirai, some procedures were improved. In particular, the results of the count now must be made public outside every polling station; that limits the scope of the electoral commission, most of whose members are picked by Mugabe, to fiddle the figures at a central count.

But the list of criteria for a fair election, drawn up for Mugabe by Mbeki and his fellow SADC leaders, had been habitually ignored by Mugabe, without a squeak of protest from his conniving African counterparts. There is little evidence that Mbeki intended to enforce the departure of Zimbabwe's disastrous leader.

Even now, Mbeki seems to be hoping for a government of national unity, with Mugabe graciously agreeing to step down some time soon, to be replaced by a fellow villain from within his brutal and corrupt ZANU-PF party, perhaps alongside Tsvangirai and an assortment of others. This would be quite wrong. ZANU-PF is as rotten as Mugabe. It has ruined and pillaged the country. Most Zimbabweans do not want to be ruled by it any more.

Tsvangirai, by contrast, says he will gather a government of all the talents, looking beyond his own party perhaps to include a few exceptional ZANU-PF people, maybe - if he is wise - along with the likes of Simba Makoni, the able ZANU-PF man who bravely broke with Mugabe to emerge as a third man in the election. Why should Mbeki seek to flout the wishes of the Zimbabwean majority?

It is a sad truth that the main reason for Africa's malaise has been bad government. In the past decade Western leaders have made big efforts to right the wrongs of the past, above all by rewarding and encouraging better government.

They should go on doing so. But it is not surprising that Western taxpayers feel loath to be generous when African leaders en masse refuse to help boot out one of their most wicked colleagues.


The Economist/The Gazette (Montreal) 2008