Its not that hard. Just beat people up and kill them, coerce them into supporting you by threatening them with their lives; eventually create an image of mobs supporting you because if they don't shout and chant that they support you they will all be killed. genius tactics, except that western journalists are there to interview people who have been under constant threat of death for the last forty years, and are pissed off and telling these western journalists everything. Anonymously, of course. but he gets to hang on to power! for the next 4 years of his life, maybe, when he dies.
Tsvangirai, had he stayed in, would almost certainly have lost. Or been shot if he had won. Dropping out of the race was really his only viable option, not only to make a point but also to preserve his life.
Sometimes I understand why people get assassinated. Its so frustrating to think that this man singlehandedly undermines the stability of millions of people living in his country. And why isn't South Africa doing anything? theyre right next door. theyve been forced to deal with immigration consequences as a result of whats been happening in zimbabwe for the last few months -- Johannesburg erupted into a massive battleground of South Africans murdering immigrating Zimbabweans, to the point where the attitude in S Africa was so bad that zimbabweans returned to their home country, actually preferring the zanu-pf's tactics to those of the peoples of south africa. And it never benefits any country to have a poor unstable country next door; pure geography dictates this fact. Unless maybe you build an electric fence. But South Africa has just stood idly by, watching the political upheaval next door, doing nothing but dealing with their lame-in-comparison problems of white landowners being moved off their property.
Ahhhh effing mugabe, why are there so many terrible people like you in the world? oh, alpha male who refuses to give up power. Its the story of Africa. why cant anyone come up with a solution to this problem that keeps presenting itself? freakin a.
Maybe if you look at it from a perspective of resources; only those in power have access to money and food and everyone else lives a life of poverty. So unpopular men in power hang on to it for dear life because if they dont have complete control then they will either almost certainly die because they can no longer afford security guards and massive amounts of intelligence, or they have to live like a normal person, eating rice and beans and struggling to survive.
the economist a few weeks ago mentioned that tsvangirai had offered mugabe the opportunity of perhaps a less prestigious post with cash benefits and a comfortable retirement. This suggests that the alternative paragraph was almost certainly true, or at least that tsvangirais camp believed it to be so. But this was clearly not enough to tempt Mugabe - he knew that he could continue employing tactics that hed learned from the people he overthrew, and from decades in power, that he could continue living the life of luxury in power, second to nobody. Somewhere in his personal, economical judgment, he determined that the chances of staying in power with all that money were greater than the chances that he would lose and still be able to live a comfortable retirement. What conceit and confidence he has in his own powers of totalitarian rule.
and he must know that the west will do nothing to intevene (because we never do) and that south africa will do nothing, and that no other country in africa has either interest or ability to do anything, and that his people are too poor and disorganized to stage a revolution or a successful coup. Tsvangirai should have offered him something more valuable than the comforts of power in order to entice him to peacefully leave zimbabwe, or made the prospect of staying in power a dismal one. As far as what that may have been, id assume that required a personal knowledge of Mugabe and a deeper understanding of how leaders in zimbabwe make their money, and i am really not in a position to postulate about either of those.
so there you go. simple behavioral economics. something has got to turn this tide.
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