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Published 18th February 2000

Vol 41 No 4


Zimbabwe

Saying no to the yes-men

ZANU's referendum defeat is a political watershed but it doesn't guarantee the opposition a victory in the April polls

'We've won this war, so we're all guerrillas now,' a young man shouted out at a crowded civic meeting in Harare, just hours after the Zimbabwean people had learned of the first electoral defeat since Independence for the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front. Though it won 578,210 'Yes' votes in the 12-13 February referendum, the 'No' votes were a convincing 697,754. Like so many speakers at the meeting, the young man triumphantly saw the government's defeat as automatically translating into an opposition victory in the elections due in April. That's too easy. With about 1.3 million people voting in the referendum from an electorate of 5 mn., the turnout was even lower than the 36 per cent who voted in the 1996 presidential election. It was clearly a massive protest vote against President Robert Mugabe's government but the loyalist forces were hardly mobilised, as shown by the huge stayaways in ZANU-PF's core constituencies in the rural areas which make up 70 per cent of Zimbabwe. While the towns vociferously and actively oppose Mugabe and his party, the countryside stays on the sidelines.


Hawks or doves?

Image courtesy of Panos Pictures

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Britain is maintaining an 'informal arms embargo' on Zimbabwe, defence sources told Africa Confidential in Harare this week. This is despite a cabinet meeting in Downing Street las...


Hanging on

Image courtesy of Panos Pictures

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Kabila's regime proves more durable than expected but he musn't offend his allies

It is not yet time to write off President Laurent-Désiré Kabila, whose government is trying to climb out of the deep economic hole it has dug itself. Crucially, impor...


Boutef rides his luck

Peace has dawned: next, the push for a prosperity which may help protect it

President Abdelaziz Bouteflika enjoys a surplus of that most sought-after North African blessing, Baraka (God-given luck). He inherited a flagging peace process, needed to show tan...



Pointers

Phone operators

Launched in Lisbon, the Commission for Peace, Justice and Reconciliation in Angola is the latest diplomatic device of the União Nacional para a Independência Total de ...


Secret Pipeline

The National Islamic Front government is quietly preparing a second pipeline from the south, with pumps again supplied by Britain's Weir Pumps. The NIF has said it wants to expand ...


Watching and waiting

President Mathieu Kérékou has kept his head down amid celebrations of his overthrow ten years ago. His friends say he developed humility when he became a Catholic while out of offi...