Exhilaration, uncertainty, hope, & anxiety: Zimbabwe after the election

In the aftermath of Zimbabwe's stunning election upset on Saturday (see HERE & HERE & HERE), the Guardian's Chris McGreal tries to capture the conflicted mood of Zimbabweans.

There is a collective holding of the breath in Zimbabwe as people who can't quite believe they have managed so decisively to defeat Mugabe and his Zanu-PF party wait to see what happens next. [....]

Witness Mbira, who described himself as an "interested poll-watcher with no money, thanks to Mugabe" said: "Zanu-PF had no idea what the people thought. If they did, how could they imagine that we would vote for them after what they have done to us? They thought they could buy us with free spades and threaten us that we will not eat. We have been delivered from darkness, from hell. They are finished. The people have spoken and now they know we do not want them. The message here is that they are thieves and murderers and liars. Now they can go away." [....]

There were celebrations in some places: Harare's Chitungwiza township and in Bulawayo saw cheering crowds of young people. But most people are wary, uncertain what the police and army will do after the security chiefs said they would never recognise a Tsvangirai victory.

Their wariness may well be justified. We should know soon. Meanwhile, read the whole piece (below).

--Jeff Weintraub
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The Guardian
Monday March 31 2008
Holding their breath, for the beginning of the end
By Chris McGreal

Zimbabweans dare not celebrate yet. But they ask excitedly if it can be true that the "old man" might really be on his way out, and then they reflect with resignation that Zimbabwe has been this way before. Robert Mugabe probably lost the 2002 election before the state-run electoral commission changed the numbers.

"We want to believe but can't quite," said George Murangari, a Harare churchgoer. "We know he's lost but we can't say he's lost until he admits it. Do you think he's just going to give up? If you do, you don't know Mugabe."

But this time it might be different. The victory of the opposition candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai, appears to be so clear that the numbers cannot so easily be fixed. There is a collective holding of the breath in Zimbabwe as people who can't quite believe they have managed so decisively to defeat Mugabe and his Zanu-PF party wait to see what happens next.

Even the belligerently pro-Mugabe Sunday Mail newspaper abandoned its ritual front page denunciation of the president's opponents in favour of a unusually realistic headline: "Anxiety grips Zim". The editors had, no doubt, been preparing to declare a great victory for Mugabe but as the election results filtered across the country, people from all sides took a step back to consider what it all meant.

Witness Mbira, who described himself as an "interested poll-watcher with no money, thanks to Mugabe" said: "Zanu-PF had no idea what the people thought. If they did, how could they imagine that we would vote for them after what they have done to us? They thought they could buy us with free spades and threaten us that we will not eat.

"We have been delivered from darkness, from hell. They are finished. The people have spoken and now they know we do not want them. The message here is that they are thieves and murderers and liars. Now they can go away."

For all Mbira's anger, there is no mood of vengeance or retribution. More than anything, there will be relief that finally the beginning of the end of the misery may be in sight. It will take years to revive Zimbabwe's economy but parts of it can be put back on track relatively quickly, particularly agriculture. Many Zimbabweans are counting on Britain and other western countries to pour in aid if Mugabe goes, and foreign businesses to return. That offers the hope of jobs and that the millions of exiles - doctors, teachers, the skilled and unskilled - will come home and families will be reunited, maybe not now but "sometime" people say.

There were celebrations in some places: Harare's Chitungwiza township and in Bulawayo saw cheering crowds of young people. But most people are wary, uncertain what the police and army will do after the security chiefs said they would never recognise a Tsvangirai victory.

"It is like a second liberation and like the first liberation we might have to fight some more before our victory is complete," said Mbira. But maybe not. Ordinary soldiers and policemen have suffered just as much as anyone, and so have their families.

Hardly anyone is thinking about what a Tsvangirai presidency may actually mean. Give it a few years and Zimbabweans might be raising statues to Mugabe and fondly remembering the fiery revolutionary who helped deliver them freedom before he led them to disaster.