Editorial: McKinnon unlikely to be unseated

The late bid to oust Don McKinnon as Commonwealth Secretary-General does not seem to portend well.

On the surface there appears grounds for renewed fears that Robert Mugabe will succeed in splitting the Commonwealth along racial grounds at this week's leaders' summit in Nigeria. In reality, however, the most notable feature of the Zimbabwean-inspired challenge to Mr McKinnon has been its inability to win support from quarters that could once have been relied upon. What, we hope, may yet emerge from the Abuja summit is not a new Secretary-General but a show of sense and sobriety by the Commonwealth's African members.

The scene for such a welcome transformation has been set by the host nation. Nigeria's President, Olusegun Obasanjo, was one of the troika of leaders appointed to recommend the Commonwealth's response to Zimbabwe and, more particularly, Mr Mugabe's abuse of human rights and democracy. At the outset, he allied himself with South Africa's Thabo Mbeki, and against Australia's John Howard. Earlier this year, the pair demanded, quite irrationally, an immediate end to the suspension of Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth, on the grounds that matters had improved greatly there.

It might, therefore, have been expected that South Africa and Nigeria, the heavyweights among Africa's Commonwealth nations, would also engineer a plausible bid to unseat Mr McKinnon, based on his supposed bias against Mr Mugabe. Such a challenge would draw strength from bonds cemented during their independence struggles, and a new resolve by Africa's leaders to act collectively on the international stage through the African Union. But South Africa and Nigeria now no longer see eye to eye on the issue, as evidenced by Mr Obasanjo's decision not to invite Mr Mugabe to the summit. In effect, Nigeria has turned its back on the Zimbabwean leader.

That split makes Mr Mbeki a central figure in Abuja. As much as traditional bonds tie him to Mr Mugabe, and to the bid to overthrow Mr McKinnon, he, like Mr Obasanjo, must recognise that support for the Zimbabwean despot is no longer tenable. The realities of international politics and economics, and Mr Mbeki's keenness to embrace them, demand that human rights and democracy are restored in Zimbabwe.

In particular, the New Partnership for Africa's Development, an initiative to extricate the continent from crippling underdevelopment by cultivating relationships with highly industrialised countries, is being held hostage by Mr Mugabe's regime. American and European financiers have little interest in the concept until they are satisfied with the continent's governance. And they can have little confidence in Africa's willingness to orchestrate change until errant states are accorded "peer review", as required by the partnership's founding document.

South Africa must now acknowledge that international reality. As it must concede that the situation in Zimbabwe has deteriorated since Mr Mugabe's fraudulent re-election. The price of his rule is now famine, rampant inflation, soaring unemployment and ongoing land invasions. Quite simply, there is no case for the lifting of Zimbabwe's suspension from the councils of the Commonwealth.

Nor is there a case for ousting Mr McKinnon as Secretary-General. In attempting to grapple with Mr Mugabe, he has carried a burden that could have been lightened considerably by the major African nations. In failing to provide that backing, they have failed themselves. The restoration of good governance in Zimbabwe will clear the way for an improvement in the often pitiful circumstances of their people. At Abuja, Africa has the chance to show that Mr Mugabe stands alone.