The Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) special summit on the Zimbabwe elections went ahead on June 15 in Maputo, Mozambique, despite press reports that Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe had sought its postponement. Mugabe had unilaterally proclaimed that elections would go ahead on July 31, as mandated by the Zimbabwean constitutional court. The opposition parties, led by Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC-T, strongly objected to elections that soon because a package of reforms designed to prevent a repeat of the 2008 electoral violence has not been legislated or implemented. SADC, led by South Africa’s president Jacob Zuma, has called for such a Zimbabwe “road map” that would promote free and fair elections. Read more »

President Robert Mugabe on June 13, set July 31 as Zimbabwe’s election day. The chief opposition leader and current prime minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, flatly rejected the date and said he would challenge it in the courts. Earlier in the month the Zimbabwe constitutional court ruled that elections must be held by July 31 under the provisions of the new constitution. Meanwhile, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) has postponed a planned summit in Maputo to consider a Zimbabwe road map for free and fair elections at Mugabe’s request. According to South African media, that meeting could be rescheduled for as early as June 18. Read more »

Nelson Mandela is an international icon for the politics of reconciliation and the rule of law. Since the transition to non-racial democracy, South African elections have been credible, following the pattern of the first all-race elections in 1994. Mandela voluntarily stepped down after a single term as chief of state. Most South Africans regard him as the father of democratic, non-racial South Africa. Read more »

Simukai Tinhu analyzes the staying power of Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party in a thoughtful article, “Zimbabwe: Mugabe’s Will to Power.” It was published in ThinkAfrica Press on May 9. Also a “must-read” is the International Crisis Group’s (ICG) report “Zimbabwe Elections Scenarios;” it appeared May 6. Read more »

South Africa is much larger and more developed than its neighbors in the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Economically, it dominates the entire region. Apartheid South Africa regularly intervened militarily outside its borders during the struggle against the African National Congress and other liberation movements, thereby highlighting their neighbors’ weaknesses. A consequence of South Africa’s disproportionate power and influence is that it is often resented by other Southern African nations. Occasionally this breaks out into the open. Read more »

In March, Zimbabwe’s government, headed by Robert Mugabe, announced that no EU or U.S. observers would be invited to the national elections, now scheduled for the end of June 2013.  The official reason for the ban is EU and U.S. sanctions against the Mugabe government. Read more »

Friends of Africa often anoint “for the moment” selected leaders from that continent as heroes. Nigeria’s Olusegun Obasanjo, Congo’s Mobutu Sese-Seko, Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, and Rwanda’s Paul Kagame have all enjoyed that status at one time or another. Often the “hero” immediately follows a tyrant–or chaos. Obasanjo followed a generation of military rulers, and his immediate predecessor was the “tyrant” Sani Abacha who resorted to judicial murder; Mobutu emerged from Congo’s domestic chaos and civil war and promised inoculation against the Communists; Mugabe followed the racist regime of Ian Smith and promised racial reconciliation; and Paul Kagame “ended” the genocide in Rwanda. Read more »

South Africans often assume that since the end of apartheid, and the coming of democracy in 1994, there has been a huge wave of migration into South Africa from the rest of the continent. Stories abound of entire Johannesburg neighborhoods that are now Nigerian or Congolese–and that immigrants have taken over certain crime syndicates. There have been xenophobic riots against Zimbabwean refugees in South Africa who, with the benefit of higher education standards in their home country, are seen by township dwellers as competition for scarce jobs. Read more »

Zimbabwe’s public account is down to its last $217. The finance minister says the country’s finances “are in paralysis.” How can that be? Zimbabwe’s diamond fields at Marange could hold between two and seven billion carats of raw diamonds, and constitutes a quarter of global diamond output, according to Bernard Chiketo in “Think Africa Press.” Read more »

For the past five years, Robert Mugabe’s government has, in effect, persecuted the Anglican Church in Zimbabwe.  As I blogged previously in 2011, the ex-bishop of Harare, Nolbert Kunonga, a long-time Mugabe supporter, sought to take his diocese out of the Anglican Communion, ostensibly because of Anglican Communion support for gay rights.  The church thereupon deposed him and chose a new bishop, Chad Gandiya. But, Mugabe continued to support Kunonga and a pro-Mugabe judge gave him “custody” of church property pending a high court ruling. Kunonga also ended up with a confiscated, previously white-owned, farm. Pro-government goons over the past five years have, in effect, overseen the transfer of the cathedral in Harare, Anglican schools, orphanages, and parish churches to Kunonga and his supporters. The archbishop of Canterbury protested directly to Mugabe last year. Read more »