On June 29, ZANU-PF's Robert Mugabe was declared the winner by electoral officials of the presidential run-off vote on June 27, in which he was the only candidate. It was announced that Mugabe had won 2,150,269 votes against 233,000 for the leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) Morgan Tsvangirai.
Although his name still appeared on the ballot, Tsvangirai had withdrawn from the race and called for a boycott in the lead-up. The Mugabe regime had unleashed a wave of terror against opponents, including occupying rural areas and threatening more violence against rural populations if the vote went against Mugabe.
In the aftermath of fraudulent vote, the increasingly internally and externally isolated Mugabe regime announced a willingness to hold discussions with the MDC to find a negotiated settlement by potentially forming a "unity government" between Mugabe's ZANU-PF and the MDC.
Tsvangirai has announced his willingness for such discussions, including a potential offer of granting the dictator the status of "president for life".
The Zimbabwean International Socialist Organisation (ISO), originally part of the MDC but strongly critical of its increasingly pro-Western, neoliberal direction, have argued for an alternative course to end the dictatorship and win democracy — the mobilisation of urban and rural working people, who face severe economic as well as political crisis.
The ISO have been targeted by the regime, along with other pro-democracy forces. A June 6 statement on its blog,
Below is an abridged June 20 ISO statement that, while released before the run-off vote, provides an overview of the crisis and perspectives to advance. The full statement can be read at http://links.org.au.
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The regime of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has unleashed a reign of terror across the country. The level of violence and political intimidation now far exceeds that of before the 2000 elections. The economic collapse is severe and unprecedented.
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor Gideon Gono's floating of the Zimbabwe dollar has led to its collapse to Z$6 billion to US$1, and inflation is now at more that 2 million per cent, with prices going up twice a week. The Zimbabwe people are truly suffering.
Since May 1 there have been arbitrary arrests of civic leaders, starting with the two-week detention of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Union's president and secretary general.
Fourteen Women of Zimbabwe Arise leaders were detained for nearly a month for protesting the delay in releasing the election results. Two of their leaders, Jenni Williams and Magodonga Mahlangu, remain detained in Chikurubi Prison. Also arrested and harassed are church, student and NGO leaders and teachers.
NGOs and social movements have effectively been closed down by the regime, despite assertions to the contrary. State agents have moved from door to door at NGO offices, forcing them to close or confiscating computers and files.
ZANU-PF bases have been set up in townships where MDC and civic groups activists are being forced to attend night vigils and/or assaulted. Several of our ISO members from Mbare, Sunningdale, Epworth and Chitungwiza have had their houses raided, forcing them to flee while others have been brutally assaulted. Tec Bara, the ISO Harare gender coordinator and Zimbabwe Social Forum national deputy convenor for gender, is currently hospitalised after being brutally assaulted at her home. Three of our Mutare comrades were also assaulted and brutalised.
The MDC is receiving the brunt of the attacks. Tsvangirai has been repeatedly arrested, his rallies banned and campaign buses and vehicles impounded. The MDC is totally blacked-out from the state-controlled daily newspapers, radio stations and TV, while under Operation Dzikisai Madhishi, people are being forced to remove satellite dishes from their homes. Detained MDC secretary general Tendai Biti faces treason charges, carrying the death penalty.
The wife of the MDC mayor-elect of Harare has been abducted and killed, houses in townships fire-bombed with four people killed, and 20 houses in the Chipinge rural village of NCA chairperson Lovemore Madhuku were torched.
ZANU-PF has virtually closed off the rural areas from the opposition.
The MDC and civic society are paying a heavy price for failing to heed warnings not to take the election route as their principal strategy for achieving change rather than a central strategy of mass action centred around a fighting united front of the opposition, civic society and the labour movement, demanding a new democratic constitution before any elections.
At best, elections should only have been used as a secondary tactic to mobilise people for the central strategy of mass action. Capitalist elites who have used their money to commodify our struggles and worm their way into leadership positions in the opposition and civic society stopped this and built false illusions around the elections and marginalised the activists who built the party and are today sorely needed.
It is likely that by the time parliament convenes, enough opposition MPs will either be in detention or have fled to give ZANU-PF the majority to elect both the speaker of the House of Assembly and president of Senate despite being the minority party.
A key objective is preparation for a ZANU-PF-dominated, but neoliberal and pro-business government of national unity (GNU) with the MDC after the elections. In our September 2007 perspective we stated that because of the imploding economic crisis and "despite his rhetoric, Mugabe is now ready to capitulate and enter into an elitist compromise deal with the MDC, the West and business. But only after the 2008 elections, which he hopes to use to legitimise his party's claim to being the senior player in such alliance, deal with his party's succession problem as well as protect his legacy, person and family besides his little burial plot at Heroes Acre."
Many of his top officials have indeed been quoted suggesting the GNU is an indispensable option to deal with the Zimbabwean crisis. The crackdown is designed to force the MDC into such a GNU and pre-empt any potential resistance from its radicals or civic society.
Today many of the cowardly elites in the opposition will, as we have been warning for over two years, gladly accept the GNU, with the support of business, [South African President Thabo] Mbeki, SADC and most of the West, fearful of the further radicalisation of the Zimbabwean crisis.
ZANU-PF tactics are thus working.
Even civic groups that have not been raided are now stampeding to close down their offices. Fear stalks the nation.
The way forward is to mobilise for a united front for democracy and mass action. The first and most important thing is to confront the veil of fear that threatens to suffocate us.
The defiance of the closure of offices by several NGOs is correct. Even if the regime closes our offices, we must not allow it to close down our movements — underground alternatives must be urgently built.
But no one group can withstand this pressure alone. We need a united collective response. This is why for the last three years and at the People's Convention we were calling for the need to build a radical united front of civic groups, the labour movement and the anti-capitalist movement, autonomous of the MDC, even if working with it. One capable of initiating united front-based mass actions without necessarily being subordinated to the MDC. And one based on a pro-working people and anti-neoliberal/capitalist ideology.
At the Convention we unfortunately allowed our tactical differences on whether to support or boycott the March elections to divide us and stop us from the bigger project of building such a united front. Today we all pay a heavy price.
But it is not too late to regroup, reorganise and offer leadership in action along with the MDC. Even under this crackdown we can regroup, initially on a defensive program of solidarity for those under attack and in self-defence and counter-attacks where necessary.
Most urgently we call for a summit of leaders of the opposition and civic society to set up a united front of resistance. We believe that such united front must be totally rooted in, and organised around, the bread and butter concerns of working people, including peasants and the unemployed, as opposed to the wealthy capitalist elites in business, locally and internationally.
Any struggle against the regime that fails to do this will be outflanked on its left by this crafty regime, which has shown, most powerfully around the land question, a strong capacity to cynically manipulate the poor's concerns to remain in power and demonise the opposition as a stooge of the West and the business class.
One of the first things to do is to convene a massive united front rally for democracy in the centre of Harare a few days to be convened by the MDC-led opposition, civic groups, trade unions and the churches. If possible the unions must call for all workers in Harare not to go to work but to attend the rally.
The purpose of the rally is first to fight the veil of fear and rebuild confidence in our movements. Second to send a message to the dictatorship that we will not be cowed; that we demand an immediate cessation of the reign of terror, compensation of all victims, immediate release of all political prisoners.
Under no circumstances must we agree to the GNU sell-out idea. There can be no marriage with such a murderous regime, we must consign it to its true destiny — the dustbin of history.
The GNU is a project for the dictatorship to perpetuate itself and for the capitalist and the imperialist elites to ensure that the poverty that the capitalist ZANU-PF government started is perpetuated forever.
It's time we allow the ordinary people to take charge of the struggle that is rightfully theirs and ensure an outcome that achieves real democracy, economically and politically, for the majority and not just the political and capitalist elites as we have seen so many times in recent history in the region and internationally. As our brothers and sisters in Latin America are pushing ahead we say no to capitalism and yes to international socialism as the way forward for humanity.
Shinga Murombo! Jambanja Ndizvo! Smash the dictatorship! Viva socialism!