Finally the answer comes to the question we’ve all been waiting for: The opposition will not protest.

HARARE, Zimbabwe, April 3 — Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai on Sunday ruled out calling for mass demonstrations to protest what he said were fraudulent results from last week’s parliamentary elections. Instead, he said, his party would redouble efforts to recruit new members from beyond its urban strongholds.

Tsvangirai said widespread discrepancies in announced vote totals made clear that the party of President Robert Mugabe, which controlled the nation’s electoral mechanisms, rigged the outcomes in the rural areas where they claimed most of their seats in Thursday’s landslide victory. He also has alleged that the ruling party intimidated voters, doctored the voter’s roll with phony names and used food aid in drought-stricken areas to garner support.

Yet Tsvangirai rejected calls from some of his supporters for demonstrations, saying that not enough protesters were willing to take to the streets to force Mugabe from power. Those who did come to demonstrate, he said, would be arrested, hurting the long-term prospects for growing the party.

“I’m not afraid to go to jail myself,” said Tsvangirai, looking relaxed in an open-collared shirt in his well-groomed suburban home in Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital. “But it’s one thing to be courageous and another thing to make reckless decisions in a way that won’t be sustainable. We have to be realistic.”

Tsvangirai’s reluctance to call for protests, which are illegal in Zimbabwe without prior written approval from a police force that Mugabe controls, has prompted some opposition supporters to call for new, more-aggressive leadership. One frustrated party official said privately that the first days after the election, as the extent of the ruling party landslide became clear, marked Tsvangirai’s “Gandhi moment,” when people were ready to be led into demonstrations.

Mugabe, who has dismissed allegations that the elections were tainted, also has made clear he would seek to crush protests, saying on Saturday that any effort by the opposition to demonstrate would cause “conflict, serious conflict.”

Tsvangirai acknowledged in the interview that the government likely would overwhelm any protests with force. He added that Zimbabwe, with its repressive laws on public assembly and history of ruling party violence, is “not Ukraine,” a reference to the peaceful uprising that reversed a rigged presidential election in that former Soviet republic last year.

“We have to be realistic,” Tsvangirai said.
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Journalists and other independent observers reported that opposition rallies drew larger and more enthusiastic crowds in many parts of the country in the final weeks before the election. Even in rural areas previously regarded as no-go zones for the opposition because of political violence, the party organized supporters and held rallies.

Yet having ruled out both demonstrations and a legal challenge against the election results, Tsvangirai in the interview was unable to describe a scenario in which his party took power unless Mugabe chose to negotiate with an opposition he has repeatedly called “traitors” and tools of colonialist Western powers.

“What has become very evident is you can’t expect democracy from a dictator,” said Tsvangirai, whose party threatened for months to boycott the elections before deciding to field candidates. “He goes through this democratic process but with a full eye on controlling the outcome.”

“Only the gullible can believe what came out of this election,” Tsvangirai said on Sunday. “Everyone understands the extent of the fraud.”

He added, “The struggles continue . . . I’m very certain that the people are not going to give up. We are not going to give up.

Of course, it is pretty hard for the opposition to win when the country’s electoral mechanism are all controlled by Mugabe, and the election observers were all hand-picked by him as well.

The African Union (AU), the 13-member regional Southern African Development Community (SADC) and government delegations from Zambia, Mozambique and Malawi joined economic powerhouse South Africa in saying the poll was free, credible and reflected the will of the people.

The opposition rejected the result and joined Western governments in denouncing it as a fraud, saying Mugabe had stolen his third election in five years.

The European Union called the election “phoney” and the United States attacked its credibility, saying the process was unfairly tilted in favor of the government.

But Africa’s observers appeared satisfied.

It’s as if they did it to help verify their own muddy electoral processes. Just look at what Mugabe plans to do once in power (from the same article).

“At the moment it’s 150 (the number of parliamentary seats), but I think we can bring it up to about 200 or any other number that’s agreed,” Mugabe said in a televised interview with the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC).

Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party scored a massive win on Thursday, taking the two-thirds majority it needs to push through constitutional changes at will.

ZANU-PF won 78 of the 120 contested seats but Mugabe also gets to appoint 30 additional members to the 150-seat legislature.

Mugabe, 81, also said the constitution may be changed to create a dual legislature with a senate.

He might as well make 1000 new seats, because whatever Mugabe does now, it will cement his party in power until nobody is left alive in Zimbabwe. Despite that, though, Mugabe himself plans on living quite a while.

HARARE, ZIMBABWE – A triumphant President Robert Mugabe, whose ruling party won parliamentary elections condemned by Western powers as unfair, declared Saturday he would stay in power until he is 100.

Zimbabwe’s 81-year-old president greeted international journalists at a news conference with the words, “Are you afraid?”

He warned of serious violence and a tough response if the opposition took to the streets.

After 25 years in power, Mugabe answered a question on retirement plans by mapping out 19 more years at the helm, unless he dies in office. He had earlier promised to leave office by 2008.

This has been probably one of the saddest elections I’ve had to cover, because in following the struggles of democratic hopefuls against Mugabe, I have really learned that we can’t just write Africa off. In totalitarianism, there is always a critical low point where it is literally impossible for a people to fend for themselves against a government. This point is where people do not have the strength, the means, or the ability to do so. When we look at Ukraine, Lebanon, and Kyrgyzstan, we see oppressive rulers of people who were not completely deprived of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We also see men who could not forsake their nationality to commit mass murder on their countrymen simply to stay in power.

But when we look at Mugabe we see not a man, but a cold, hollow figure who deliberately denied his countrymen everything we in America hold as truth. Can we here even fully imagine what it would be like to have a government that starves us? Prevents us from working? Destroys our shelter? Holds no sanctity for our very lives?

That’s the kind of man Mugabe is. He has put Zimbabwe past the critical point where if even the entire opposition engaged in mass protest, he would have every one of them shot. Why? Because he doesn’t care as long as he is in charge. That’s why we can’t write Africa off; it isn’t the people’s fault. Their dire situation was caused by the force of ruthless dictators like Mugabe, who they have no chance of fighting back against under pain of death.

I know from our coverage how much they want out. But after the critical point has been reached, they cannot do it alone. That’s why I am so disappointed that South Africa and other neighboring countries were so keen on ratifying this obvious mockery of electoral democracy. The status quo is simply unacceptable, and because of South Africa’s failure to do anything about it, we have to again look west for the moral fortitude that tramples the carnage of island despots.