South Africa

Simba Makoni’s comments last week that “South Africa has not offered any support, and I didn’t ask for it” probably reaffirmed in the minds of many people Thabo Mbeki and the rest of the South African government’s unwillingness to stand up to Robert Mugabe. And yet it seems from where I sit that Mbeki must be aware that he is in a no-win situation. Any word from him of even tepid support for Makoni and  Mbeki runs the risk of opening the floodgates of Mugabe’s considerable and well-rehearsed rhetorical flourishes about Zimbabwean sovereignty and imperialistic outside interference.  And in  giving Mugabe, who is already tightening his grip on power in advance of this month’s elections,  an outside bogeyman  Mbeki almost assuredly would be playing into the hands of Mugabe who would love nothing better than to play the role of beleaguered defended of Zimbabwean autonomy in the face of an outside onslaught. Best for Mbeki to remain silent and hope for change to come than inadvertently to fuel Mugabe’s victory by giving him an outside influence against whom to rally.

(Simba Makoni — UK Telegraph)

Worse news than Mbeki’s possibly welcome silence has hit Makoni’s camp in any case. Joyce Mujuru, Mugabe’s deputy president (long-rumored to be Mugabe’s likely successor), has announced that she is backing Mugabe for another term. This scuttles many of the hopes that Makoni’s supporters had developed in which Mujuru would throw her support behind Makoni as other prominent Zanu-PF members have done in recent days.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 4th, 2008 at 4:30 pm and is filed under Zimbabwe, Mugabe, Elections, ZANU-PF, Simba Makoni. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.