Zimbabwe: Worse And Worse

by hilzoy

The NYT has a depressing story on Zimbabwe’s opposition:

“The last couple of years have been exceedingly tough for the Movement for Democratic Change, the only opposition political party of any note in authoritarian Zimbabwe. Party officials have been beaten with stones and logs; their cars have been hijacked; their posters have been methodically stripped from street poles. In one memorable instance, thugs tried to toss the party’s director of security down a sixth-floor stairwell at its headquarters.

And those are just the attacks they have endured from their own members.

Even more than the Zimbabwean government’s frequently brutal abductions and assaults on members of the M.D.C., the internecine brawls are evidence that all is not well inside Zimbabwe’s political opposition, the force on which the West has pinned its hopes for democratic change.

As President Robert G. Mugabe’s 27-year rule enters what many analysts call a terminal phase, the selfproclaimed democratic opposition is near its nadir.

The Movement for Democratic Change is split into two bitterly opposed factions, at war over ideology, power and prestige. Each has called the other a tool of Mr. Mugabe’s spy service, the Central Intelligence Organization, and each has accused the other of betraying the party’s democratic ideals.

Now, with a crucial national election looming, the question is whether they can reform their tactics and patch up their differences long enough to mount a serious challenge to Mr. Mugabe — and if they do, whether ordinary people will care.”

This, to me, has always been one of the really depressing aspects of the meltdown of Zimbabwe: not only will the absence of a decent, credible opposition postpone the day when the country gets out from under Robert Mugabe’s rule, but it also makes it much, much less likely that the replacement will be anything to write home about. Of course, whoever takes over after Mugabe will almost have to be an improvement — it’s always possible to find someone worse, but when a leader is as bad as Mugabe, the odds are against it. But I’d be a lot happier for Mugabe if there were some genuinely impressive person running the opposition.

Meanwhile, ordinary people in Zimbabwe continue to suffer:

“THE International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said Zimbabwe’s official annual inflation data have been substantially understated to the extent that by February, when government said the annual rate had hit 1 730%, the actual figure had, instead, surged closer to 3 000%. (…)

“It is worth mentioning that the official CPI in Zimbabwe is likely to substantially understate inflation because about a third of the basket reflects price controlled items and the consumption weights are outdated,” the IMF said in a statement yesterday.

With the current year-on-year inflation at 2 200,2%, it means the “realistic” inflation rate for March is above 4 000%.

“Many in the private sector believe that the true rate of annual inflation was closer to 3 000% in February 2007,” the IMF added. Last month the fund revised its inflation projections for the yearend from 4 000% to 5 000%.”

That’s an unimaginably awful level of inflation. One minor indication of how bad things are: about half the nurses at major referral hospitals are not showing up for work because they can no longer afford the bus fare. It’s just all bad news*, and I can’t see any end in sight.

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* Following Zimbabwean news does have its odd moments, however. Here’s one:

“THERE was drama at the Masvingo Civil Court on Wednesday when a woman — who was testifying in a case over a dispute centred on dual ownership of a house — fell into a trance and collapsed before turning violent and removing her clothes.

An alert prison officer and a policewoman, however, managed to restrain the woman, who appeared to be possessed. (…)

Before being restrained, Ms Dzedzereka ran around the courtroom half-naked, speaking in a strange language and throwing heavy punches at all those who attempted to restrain her before a prison officer and a policewoman subdued her.”

Sad, but in a different way.