The lack of quality opposition is helping Mugabe fulfil his president-for-life dream!

Those arguing that Mugabe should step down much less contest the next Zimbabwe presidential election on the grounds that he is old and his health is failing are ignoring one basic fact: Mugabe is to be president for life! That is what Mugabe and the Join Operation Command (the people with all the real political power in Zimbabwe) want, period.

Mugabe’s claim of being mentally “sharp” is no empty one. He has always been as sharp as Samurai sword and has remained so even at 87 year old compared to his 60 year old main challenger, Tsvangirai, whose intellectual agility can only be compared to that of a sloth! US Ambassador Dell call Tsvangirai a “flawed and indecisive character”. Of course he was right!

The Zimbabweans people’s failure to address the pressing need for competent and serious challenger to Mugabe’s rule is what is helping the aging dictator’s cherished dream of president-for-life come true!

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It is hard to be patient with PM Tsvangirai. What does he mean Zimbabwe “risks sliding back to 2008 with the consequent chaos and instability”? After the 2008 sham elections Mugabe has pointedly refused to address this thorny problem of political violence that have always been an integral party of Zimbabwean politics. The only way to address it was to have all those responsible for the rapes, beatings, murders, etc. are arrested and punished. What Mugabe did was dismiss the whole episode as if it was a minor skirmish of no political consequence. By doing so Mugabe once again assured his party thugs and the State Security Agencies who played an increased and prominent role in the 2008 violence that they are above the law.

In the last two years Mugabe has gone on to reorganise the party’s terror machine. The money Mugabe is getting from the sell of Marange diamonds (MDC have failed to wrestle the control of this resource from Mugabe for the benefit of the whole nation and not just Zanu PF) has given the tyrant the full war chest to fund his party’s election campaign and pay the party thugs.

Mugabe wants fresh election held in Zimbabwe this year and, naturally, his terror machine which has been idling all along has now stepped up a gear or two. Tsvangirai has seen all this coming and therefore it is nonsense to talk of it as if this is a new development!

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@ Skint War Vet
Tsvangirai should "soldier on" to the finish line!? What is the finish line? Tsvangirai had no plane "B" if the marriage did not work and that is why he is in this mess. And needless to say that he dragged the whole country with him.
If Tsvangirai walkout of this GNU MDC would have the chance of a change of guard - something the party has needed so desperately for years. If MDC had had competent leaders, they would have never agreed to such a one-sided power sharing arrangement. To continue in the arrangement only serves to underline that Tsvangirai does not have the guts to make any decisive action even when one has been forced on him!