No leader lasts forever, even if it appears that way in Harare
April 14, 2008
 By Quentin Wray
As the Zimbabwean election morphs from a beacon of hope into a comedic display of bully-boy politicking and rhetoric, President Robert Mugabe now stands accused of hatching a silent coup.
This is the first instance I know of where the government in power stages a coup to stay there. Normally the niceties of actually handing over power to the new lot are dispensed with before coup takes place, but in this new century perhaps it is time for old rules to be done away with.
Given how loathe our politicians are to speak, based on principles rather than practicalities, whoever ends up in Harare's State House once the dust settles, whether it be Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai or Mugabe, will be welcomed as the result of a "free and fair" process.
But however this plays out, Mugabe will have again shown the African Union and the New Partnership for Africa's Development up for the paper tigers they are.
Africa's inability to act against its own means The Economist's infamous "Hopeless continent" headline, which so incensed our ruling elite a few years ago, remains apt. The message repeatedly sent is: if you are unlucky enough to live under tyranny you're on your own. Nobody will stand up for you. No matter how dire your plight, you will remain an "internal matter" and your government's sovereignty will be cherished above all else.
Looking beyond the immediate future, to when Zimbabweans start trying to fix what has been systematically broken, no matter who is in charge, it will not be easy.
Even had there been a silky smooth transfer of power from Zanu-PF to the MDC, the results on their own would not have guaranteed success. It will take a lot more than the courage to stand up to an oppressive regime to fix problems that were decades in the making. Closer to home, the results should serve as a timely reminder that nobody, despite ANC president Jacob Zuma's remonstrations, gets to rule until the return of Jesus Christ.
It doesn't matter how many loyal cadres you deploy to key positions, how emphatically you position yourself as the only party capable of delivering freedom or how deeply rooted your belief that opposition implies a racist, imperialist, running-dog-of-the-West agenda. When most people lose faith in your ability to make their lives better, one way or another, you will be toast.
After all, Zanu-PF lost control of parliament despite marauding packs of violent war veterans and youth brigade thugs - "assets" the ANC neither has nor wants.
Liberation parties in Mexico, India and now Zimbabwe have learnt this lesson, and without any doubt, one day the ANC will learn it too. How soon that day comes will depend on how effectively the party's new leadership tackles this country's enormous human development backlogs and the triple scourges of HIV/Aids, unemployment and crime.
It also depends on how quickly effective opposition is developed to take the place of the anti-ANC group that now populates opposition benches.
A 2006 Zapiro cartoon, drawn at the time of the last local government elections, is testament to why none of our opposition parties will be the ones to topple the ANC.
Who wants to be ruled by the Anti-Constitution Dogma Party (ACDP), Darkies Absent (DA), Impetuous DeLille (ID), Increasingly Feeble Party (IFP), Prickly And Clueless (PAC), or the Uninspired Dead Movement (UDM)?
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