Mugabe gone

After ruling Zimbabwe for nearly four decades, Robert Mugabe has finally been made to step aside and to make way for a new political dispensation, to be headed by his deputy till two weeks ago, Emmerson Mnangagwa. The 93-year-old Mugabe was a doughty fighter and threw in the towel only when it became clear that the army generals had turned against him and his intriguing wife. The young spouse had developed ambitions of her own to succeed the ageing President. That was not much appreciated by the generals; they initiated a soft coup.  He could survive in office all these years mostly because of the support of the security establishment. Encouraged by a change of mind among the generals, the Zimbabwean parliament had taken up an impeachment motion. He knew the game was up. 

Robert Mugabe’s transformation from a respected freedom fighter, a feared guerrilla insurgent and an acknowledged resistance leader to a feared dictator was part of a familiar chapter in the post-colonial African story. During Mugabe’s 37-year rule things could only go from bad to worse in Zimbabwe, as the President-for-life became more and more authoritarian; in a familiar pattern, the bright and prosperous Zimbabweans fled the country, the mismanaged economy collapsed, and international donors and investors lost interest in propping up a broken down regime. Under international pressure Mugabe put in place a façade of democracy, elections and opposition; behind the façade was an elaborate structure of vote-rigging, intimidation, secret police, repression. More than 10,000 opponents and dissidents have been tortured and killed during the Mugabe years. 

It is a dysfunctional country that the post-Mugabe leadership inherits. Decades of one-party rule and one-man dictatorship have taken a heavy toll of the country’s institutions and social cohesion. An overnight return to democracy is neither possible nor desirable, as the deeply divided nation would need a period of healing and reconciliation. Mugabe’s party, Zanu-PF, will not easily embrace competition. A political arrangement that operated on brute force, election fraud and political coercion has also drained the party of habits and traditions of cooperation, tolerance, dissent. That is the lasting damage an authoritarian ruler invariably inflicts on his own country.