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CIAO DATE: 10/05
Post-Election Zimbabwe: What Next?
June 7, 2005
Abstract
The 31 March 2005 parliamentary elections that confirmed the full control of President Robert Mugabe and his ZANU-PF government were neither free nor fair and disappointed those who hoped they might mark a turn away from the crisis that has dominated Zimbabwe's political life for the past five years. The post-election situation looks deceptively familiar. In fact, Mugabe's era is coming to an end, both the ruling party and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) face existential challenges, and the international community needs to urgently rethink strategies and find new ways to maintain pressure for a peaceful democratic transition.
Mugabe and the ZANU-PF party used more sophisticated methods than previously but they manipulated the electoral process through a range of legal and extralegal means to ensure that the election was basically decided well before the first voters reached the polls. With the addition of the 30 representatives Mugabe has the right to appoint, his party now holds 108 of the 150 parliamentary seats, comfortably above the two-thirds majority required to amend the constitution at will. ZANU-PF is expected to use that power to prepare a safe and honourable retirement for its 81- year-old leader, who has said he does not want to stand for re-election in 2008.
