Zimbabwe Needs Help, But Must First Help Itself
Despite a flawed election, Mugabe's exit is a real opportunity.
Not a pretty picture.
Photographer: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
Zimbabwe's hopes for an election free of violence and manipulation have been dashed, and President-elect Emmerson Mnangagwa is preparing to take office under a cloud. Zimbabwe's friends and neighbors shouldn't look away. They still have a chance to help the country's long-suffering people.
In the euphoria surrounding last year's unseating of Robert Mugabe, the autocrat who crushed Zimbabwe's economy, peaceful change at the ballot box was a beguiling prospect. But the idea that Mnangagwa (Mugabe's vice president and one of his fiercest enforcers) and his ruling Zanu-PF party would let themselves be voted out was always a long shot. U.S., European and local monitors faulted the electoral process on numerous fronts. And the opposition coalition had problems of its own.