As Zimbabwe sweats, opposition leaders stay abroad
HARARE (AFP) — As Zimbabwe sweats on the result of last month's presidential election, awkward questions are being asked of the opposition leadership's decision to stay abroad and out of harm's way.
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai has been out of the country more than two weeks since he proclaimed himself victor over Robert Mugabe in the March 29 poll, while the party's number two, secretary general Tendai Biti, also appears in no mood to head back home.
With both men facing the very real danger of arrest for treason if they step foot back on Zimbabwean soil, any reluctance on their behalf is perhaps understandable.
But observers say the strategy has helped create a dangerous vacuum as the MDC tries to coordinate its response while awaiting the final results.
"The absence of the country's top leadership is creating a gulf between the leadership and the general membership who voted for the party," said scholar and labour activist Takavafira Zhou.
"The general membership are unaware of the party's way forward."
"If it's a strategy, it's a poor, counter-productive strategy, whatever the rationale behind it," added Eldred Masunungure, a University of Zimbabwe political studies lecturer.
"The ruling party is going to have field day. That is going to be costly in terms of maintaining and building on its (MDC) support base."
Having twice been charged with treason and endured a series of assaults at the hands of Mugabe's security services, there is little doubting Tsvangirai's courage.
But it is not the first time his political acumen has been questioned.
A row over whether to contest elections to Zimbabwe's largely ceremonial upper house of parliament, the senate, led to nearly half the party's lawmakers splitting from Tsvangirai and forming a breakaway faction in 2005.
More recently, he has been accused of showing a lack of leadership by failing to take part in protests organised by the trade unions which were crushed at the outset by the security services.
Although he restored much of his credibility when he sustained serious head injuries in March 2007 as he tried to spearhead a "prayer rally", his latest absence has reawakened criticisms he is reluctant to push things to he limit.
"There is very little he has done to galvanise internal support," Zhou said.
"People are frustrated, people want action. It's like having a loaded gun, but with no trigger."
Zimbabwe's government last week accused Tsvangirai of treason by plotting with former colonial power Britain to oust veteran President Robert Mugabe.
After the last presidential elections, which he narrowly lost in 2002, Tsvangirai was tried for treason before being later acquitted.
Fears of fresh treason charges may be there, but his party says one of the greatest concern is possibility of attempts on his life.
The MDC's secretary for legal affairs Innocent Gonese said the party undestands that there may be attempts "to physically eliminate some of our people and the security of the president is also of paramount importance."
Tsvangirai has spent most of his time in recent weeks lobbying regional and international support for his argument that Mugabe is trying to rig his re-election.
His latest stop saw him in Ghana Monday when he met UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
But for all the benefits of building up international support, his absence from Zimbabwe has meant that mixed messages are being communicated by his party.
Biti -- currently in South Africa after state media claimed he had penned a a secret document detailing plans to rig the election -- has categorically ruled out Tsvangirai standing in a run-off against Mugabe.
But the MDC leader himself has indicated he would be willing to stand as long as regional observers can oversee the poll.
"We don't deny the need for regional support, but what is more important is the Zimbabwean support," Zhou said.
"Tsvangirai is aware that he may rot in prison, but it is better for him to come back and show that he is courageous and that he can transform the vote into reality, into a government."
Tsvangirai maintained at a press conference in Johannesburg last week he was "not in exile" and would return home when he saw fit.
"We have always known there are all these risks we are taking as opposition, especially with a violent regime but that is not going to deter us."
