Perhaps my finest career moment came late on Sunday 24 September 2000. I was in my office at the FCO waiting for the first results to arrive in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia’s elections, where we hoped to see Milosevic fall.
My computer showed a first result from a tiny settlement somewhere deep in Serbia. Kostunica had some 40 votes, Milosevic 20.
This microscopic result in a rural area showed immediately that Milosevic was going to lose, and Lose Big. If he could not win well there, he had no chance in the cities.
The results started to emerge, and this supposition was confirmed. Milosevic had lost!
In Serbia news of Milosevic’s defeat spread like wildfire. The regime did not worry. They planned to gather all the results centrally, then do whatever was needed to fix the outcome and announce the Official Result some two weeks after the election.
Because the anti-Milosevic opposition were well-armed with mobile telephones and laptops, this plan collapsed: the scale of Milosevic’s defeat was so obvious, so quickly. Pressure on Milosevic to quit mounted fast. Eventually came the famous Bulldozer Revolution on 5 October.
The point, of course, is that the speedy transmission of accurate election results is at the heart of the democratic process. It allows all sides to know where they stand almost as soon as the polls have closed.
Mugabe is trying to do a Milosevic, delaying the issue of results in the hope that opposition momentum will fizzle out and he can somehow cling on. Plus he is menacingly saying that ‘premature’ claims to victory by the opposition are in effect an attempted coup (ie justifying force to suppress those making such claims).
And a classic political problem.
What do Moderates do when Extremists cheat? Do they resort to some sort of force to try to see justice done? If they do, everything could spiral out of control. If they do not, the Extremists may win again.
Maybe if Mugabe was trying to defend a solid record against a bunch of crazed populists one could see some merit in what is now happening. But on the contrary…
What if anything is even more repulsive than the farce now unfolding in Zimbabwe is the studied silence from people in Africa who should be giving leadership. No wonder that Continent is in such a mess. Facile ‘solidarity’ with any deranged gangsterish leader as long as he is an Authentic African.
An old joke from that part of the world has a scorpion asking a crocodile for a lift across a wide river. The croc fears that the scorpion will stab him. "Why should I?" says the scorpion, "I’d die too!"
The croc lets him climb on. Halfway across the river the scorpion delivers the croc a massive fatal sting.
"Aaargh, why did you do that?" gasps the dying croc as he starts to sink.
"Africa, Africa!" sings the scorpion, blithely dancing away on the diminishing space available…
Share this page:
