Not Your Average Dictatorship
Mugabe's Zimbabwe is one of the world's worst regimes, by common assent - inflation in the millions, widespread oppression and violence by the state, and of course Mugabe's recent theft of the presidential election make that undeniable. What to make of the fact, then, that opposition has been allowed to take control of the legislature?
The victory of the opposition candidate, Lovemore Moyo, by a vote of 110 to 98, underscored the opposition’s newfound control of Parliament. Despite widespread attacks on its members, the opposition holds a majority in Parliament for the first time since Zimbabwe achieved independence from white minority rule in 1980 — and now seems ready to wield that power.
This is great news, despite Mugabe's continuing refusal to yield power to Morgan Tsvangirai, who actually won Zimbabwe's most recent free election.
But it raises some odd questions. Why didn't the security services or army stop the parliament from sitting? Why did Mugabe call the parliament in the first place? Members of parliament used a secret ballot to elect their candidate - why wasn't the ruling party able to force them to vote openly, and open themselves to intimidation?
It's actually fairly easy for a strong police or military to run roughshod over a parliament if it chooses. The article linked above hints at some of the options - arrests of key leaders, threats of violence or intimidation, bribery, or just refusing to let the legislature sit. The fact that Zimbabwe's security services were either unwilling or unable to frustrate the people's will in the legislature to the same extent that they were with the presidency is interesting.
It could suggest either of two things. It's possible the ruling party just doesn't care, and will just ignore the parliament's decisions and go on running roughshod over the country. Or it could mean that, despite the months of violence and economic collapse, there remain strong civil institutions in the country that the thugs in charge are afraid to openly destroy. Given the obvious (and somewhat ham-handed) attempts by the ruling party to steal legislative seats, it looks as if they do care, and the second explanation might be more likely.
If that's true, then there is at least hope for the country after Mugabe finally leaves the stage. Unlike a lot of other brutal dictatorships like, say, North Korea or Belarus, Zimbabwe seems to have amazingly resilient institutions in place that could credibly step in and start to direct the rebuilding of the country, once the men with guns are somehow forced or convinced to stand down. And the legislature may be a voice that Mugabe and his lieutenants feel unable to completely ignore. If nothing else, Tsvangirai can now be sure of more leverage in his negotiations with Mugabe than he would have been confident of even two days ago.
