“Should we emerge victorious, which I believe we will, sure we won’t be arrogant, we will be magnanimous and say ‘let’s sit down and talk,’ and talk we shall.” These were the words of Zimbabwe’s President, Robert Mugabe at his last election rally held today in Harare. The presidential runoff election is set to go ahead tomorrow and it looks set to be a one man battle as opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai will not be taken part in the vote.
Tsvangirai had laid down several conditions with regards to talks between the two parties taking place; he had asked for his secretary general, Tendai Biti, to be released from prison and he has subsequently been. Then Tsvangirai had asked for any talks between the two political parties to take place before the runoff vote but that does not look like it will happen as the vote is only a few hours away and Robert Mugabe has insisted he will go ahead with the vote no matter what.
Now today Mugabe has said he is willing to to talk the MDC only after the runoff vote where he will win and be declared the president of Zimbabwe. Many have wondered why Mugabe insists to go ahead with the vote even if there is no opposition. The reason is; if the vote goes ahead he can officially declare himself the winner and thus ‘the peoples vote’ would count as it would be a ‘reflection’ of what ‘the people of Zimbabwe’ want. If the vote does not go ahead, then there will still be a ‘grey area’ with regards to who ‘the people of Zimbabwe’ want as their leader. So by Mugabe going ahead with the vote tomorrow, he is just making sure he is covered when any future negotiations take place. All he simply has to say is, “I won the vote, therefore I am the president. The people voted for me.” Obviously this is not want Tsvangirai and the MDC want thus they want the runoff vote to be canceled or postponed.
The ball now is literally in MDC’s court as they now have to decide what to do next. The vote will go ahead tomorrow and whether they take Mugabe’s ‘offer of talks’ seriously remains to be seen. These potential ‘talks’ between Mugabe and Tsvangirai will not happen as easily as some may think. They have not talked to each other for all these years so what makes one think they will talk now?
