Dreams fade in Zimbabwe of an end to tyranny

Just under a fortnight ago, Zimbabwe's elections raised hopes that Robert Mugabe's tyranny was "near its end, and might even end peacefully", said The Times. "Those hopes now look forlorn." The 84-year-old has lost control of parliament but is clinging to the presidency. The results of the presidential poll have still not been announced and may never be.

Mugabe may be "flailing around like a wounded beast" but it would be "foolish to underestimate his powers of recuperation", says The Guardian. After all, he has managed to hang on for 28 years.

He is fighting on two fronts. On the political front, his Zanu-FP party is playing for time, charging election officials with undercounting votes cast for Mugabe, says David Blair in The Daily Telegraph. If and when the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission does announce the results, it is expected to say neither candidate got more than 50% and the government will then be given 21 days to mount a run-off.

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In preparation for this Mugabe is trying to soften up the electorate by returning to a tactic used the last time he lost a vote, says Sebastien Berger, also in The Daily Telegraph fanning racial tensions. In 2000, two weeks after he lost a referendum, the first white-owned farm was invaded. A month later the first farmer was killed.

This time Mugabe has acted faster. Since Saturday, Mugabe's gangs have occupied at least 27 farms and evicted 60 commercial farmers. Mugabe has cast the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) as the "stooges of former British colonial rulers", claiming that it wants to hand back land to ousted whites, says Celia Dugger in The New York Times. Earlier this week the state-run Herald newspaper alleged that white former farmers were flocking back to the country to take over the land in the event of an opposition victory.

Mugabe's behaviour calls for "strong" action, urges Morgan Tsvangirai in The Guardian. There is no doubt over the results of the presidential poll. The MDC has tracked every polling station and recorded the results as they were released, and "we can guarantee that Zanu-FP and Mugabe have met their demise in the face of Zimbabwean democracy. We have assured Mugabe that he will not be pursued through the courts; the work involving in rebuilding our country is monumental and we have no need for distractions'. But the international community must help to release Mugabe's white-knuckle grip' on power". The International Monetary Fund could start by withholding £1bn of aid to Zimbabwe unless Mugabe stands down. Meanwhile, major powers such as South Africa, America and Britain should act to remove him.

It's "now or never", says South Africa's Business Day. If Mugabe is not stopped from "effectively staging a coup d'tat there will be violent confrontation" and the crisis in Zimbabwe will become a "humanitarian catastrophe". A peacekeeping force should be deployed in Zimbabwe with the explicit aims of confining the Zimbabwean military to barracks, maintaining law and facilitating the democratic process that began with the election. In 1998, a precedent was set when South African troops under a combined task force entered Lesotho to stop mutinous soldiers staging a coup. "The Lesotho mission achieved all its objectives, as will a Zimbabwe mission, if those who lead it display the courage and conviction of their commitment to peace and democracy."