Sweeping poll win will not end Zimbabwe’s crisis

HARARE - A crushing election victory has tightened President Robert Mugabe's grip on power but is likely only to aggravate his personal isolation and Zimbabwe's ruinous crisis, analysts say.

Mugabe, 81, and in power since independence from Britain in 1980, vowed before Thursday's parliamentary poll that his ZANU-PF party would "bury" both the opposition MDC and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, whom he paints as his chief enemy.

He will see the result as a sweeping vindication. ZANU-PF easily exceeded the two-thirds majority Mugabe had set as his goal and which gives the party the power to change the constitution.

But political analysts said a chorus of condemnation of the poll from the MDC (Movement for Democratic Change) and Western powers has further dented Mugabe's international credibility.

"Mugabe might crow, and shout about his supposed victory but nobody in important international quarters believes he won fairly," said one Western diplomat.

"I think what is worse is that with more power, Mugabe is likely to become more arrogant and everyone is expecting him to use it to suppress the opposition, to close up and not to open up the democratic space," he said. "I think Zimbabwe could actually be worse off with this victory. "

ZANU-PF has used its previous simple majority in parliament to introduce tough media and security laws that have hobbled the opposition.

Analysts say with a two-thirds majority, there are worries of a much tougher crackdown.

"Mugabe's major problem now is that many people, here at home and governments abroad, don't trust him," said human rights lawyer Jacob Mafume.

"On his part he has become very suspicious of some of the big Western powers, including Britain and the United States, to the extent that it is difficult for him to mend strained relations and to repeal some of the undemocratic laws on our statute books," Mafume added.

The EU imposed travel and financial sanctions on Mugabe and dozens of top officials it accused of undermining democracy when Mugabe was re-elected in a 2002 poll the MDC rejected as fraudulent.

Many Western powers said both the presidential vote and the last major parliamentary elections in 2000 were rigged, and have publicly or quietly frozen economic aid.

The condemnation of the latest poll from the European Union, United States, Britain and others was equally harsh.

"The independent press was muzzled; freedom of expression was constrained; food was used as a weapon to sway hungry voters; and millions of Zimbabweans who have been forced by the nation's economic collapse to emigrate were disenfranchised," said US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Even a regional observer team, expected to endorse the vote, expressed concerns.

But some analysts say sanctions and the isolation of Mugabe have robbed the world of critical forums to engage him constructively and have paradoxically reduced the pressure to make democratic reforms.

A furious Mugabe withdrew from the 54-member Commonwealth in December 2003 after it extended its suspension of Zimbabwe because of charges of vote rigging and political repression.

The analysts said the election would also worsen a crisis that has ruined the once-prosperous nation and which critics blame on Mugabe's mismanagement and his chaotic seizure of white-owned land for redistribution to landless blacks.

Unemployment is 70 per cent, inflation at about 130 per cent and food and fuel are in short supply.

Mugabe said his government would rebuild the economy through controversial land reforms, a consolidated economic policy and vigorous implementation of state plans.

International donors and multilateral institutions have halted lending and foreign currency balance of payment support.

In an editorial on Friday, the Zimbabwe Independent newspaper said Mugabe had "fixed the electoral system to ensure his party's retention of power" but could not solve the country's pressing economic problems.

"After all the excitement has evaporated ... Zimbabweans will be going back to their woeful lives of poverty, unemployment, food shortages and all the other ills associated with this dying regime that won't let go despite its manifest inability to solve a single one of the country's problems."

- REUTERS