UPDATE: Mugabe swears himself in as president for life

And unless the UN (AU or US) deploys troops to depose Mugabe, Tsvangirai will wither into oblivion as a president without a country….

[Mugabe forces opposition leader Tsvangirai to flee for his life, The iPINIONS Journal, June 24, 2008]

Yesterday, just hours after his electoral commission announced that he had won 85% of Friday’s run-off election, Mugabe assumed the Napoleonic prerogative and swore himself in as the disputed president of Zimbabwe.

And, just to affirm his legitimacy, Mugabe flew to Egypt today to represent Zimbabwe as its head of state at a key summit of African leaders. Moreover, he must derive some confidence in this respect from the fact that the UN has already pivoted from condemning him to pleading with his fellow leaders in the African Union (AU) to urge him to negotiate with Tsvangirai.

Unfortunately, African leaders are congenitally disposed to enable each other’s despotic tendencies – as the host of this summit, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni can attest. Therefore, leaving a resolution of this crisis in Zimbabwe to the AU does not bode well for Tsvangirai.

Like Kibaki and his ruling party [in Kenya], all indications are that Mugabe and his ruling ZANU-PF party lost close national elections that were held on March 29. Yet, like Kibaki, Mugabe refused to concede defeat, which also plunged Zimbabwe into post-election violence….

Therefore, it behooves Opposition Leader Morgan Tsvangirai and his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) to seek a grand compromise for a coalition government based on the Kenya model. And they would do well to heed this advice because all political and legal maneuvers to oust Mugabe are doomed to fail.

[Kenya forms grand coalition: a model for Zimbabwe?, The iPINIONS Journal, April 14, 2008]

Of course, Mugabe can now afford to be magnanimous. Indeed, I suspect he would be happy to confer the title of prime minister upon his hapless foe; provided, however, that that title is conferred with all of the political power wielded by a Nubian Eunuch.

Hail Mugabe!

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