It is hard not to admire Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, writes Gamal Nkrumah. His chutzpah, in the fullest sense of the word, is simply mind-boggling. His nerve, and the way he talks tough as a man who has spine, impress. Mugabe described members of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) as “pathetic puppets” and “Western stooges”, telling them to “go hang”. Worse, he told hundreds of thousands of his adoring admirers in the Zimbabwean capital Harare on Hero's Day, when Zimbabweans celebrate the Chimurenga, or war of liberation against European settler colonialism, that his detractors were worse than dogs. “Those who lost elections may commit suicide if they so wish. Even if they die, dogs will not eat their flesh,” Mugabe lambasted the MDC in nuanced Shona, his native language. “We have thrown the enemy away like garbage. They say we have rigged, but they are thieves,” Mugabe continued his tirade calling his adversaries wretched Western lackeys and vile sell-outs, reprehensible fifth columnists for the European settler colonialists, the West, and indigenous Africans who have betrayed the nationalist cause, fighting a war by proxy for the West. Mugabe insisted that his party won “a resounding mandate” from voters to complete a sweeping indigenous African empowerment programme to nationalise Western and white-owned assets in Zimbabwe. Mugabe has also pledged to sell IranZimbabwean uranium, presumably to fuel Tehran's nuclear industry, much to the consternation of Western powers. Even as the net closed on Mugabe's Zimbabwe, the nonagenarian launched a new tirade against his adversaries. His opponents were equally abrasive. MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai boycotted the Hero Day's celebrations presided over by a triumphant Mugabe. “There is no national celebration and all I can see is a nation in mourning over the audacity of so few to steal from so many,” a raging Tsvangirai roared in angst. Yet, Tsvangirai appealed for calm urging restraint from his supporters. “We have just come from a disputed and stolen election and the majority of Zimbabweans are still shocked at the brazen manner in which their vote was stolen,” he told an affronted crowd of devoted adherents. So Mugabe once more is in luck. He understands all too well that Tsvangirai will not go quietly. Mugabe, who ruled Zimbabwe since independence from Britain in 1980, has no time for Tsvangirai and his Western protégés. He is proud of his place in history. Mugabe won 61 per cent of the presidential vote while Tsvangirai received only 35 per cent, according to official results — a remarkable score, given Tsvangirai's 48 per cent to 43 per cent lead in the first round of the March 2008 presidential elections. Hitting back at the furore over his disputed victory in last month's elections, in his first public speech since the 31 July elections, the 89-year-old President Mugabe, who will now serve another five-year term in office, taunted Tsvangirai, who promptly launched a court challenge to what he describes as a “fraudulent and stolen” vote. Mugabe reaffirmed that the land grab and nationalisation programme in Zimbabwe, though balked at by Western powers, will be “pursued to its successful conclusion.” Mugabe is a man of the people of Zimbabwe, much admired for his sheer tenacity and political acumen. There is no doubt that his people respect him, and that many throughout southern Africa wish they had a leader of his calibre. The long disadvantaged indigenous Africans have had a raw deal throughout the region. Mugabe personifies African aspirations. Outgoing Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, 61, is challenging the results of the 31 July election and alleges widespread vote rigging that gave Mugabe and the Zimbabwe African National Congress-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) a commanding victory. Mugabe made it abundantly clear that it would be difficult for him and his ZANU-PF to work with Tsvangirai and his MDC again. Addressing military parades on the annual Defence Forces holiday, Mugabe declared that the Zimbabwean electorate ended an unwieldy coalition with Tsvangirai's MDC that was formed after the last violent and disputed elections in 2008. The Zimbabwean president stressed that the vote demonstrated his people's trust and confidence in ZANU-PF and that his compatriots expressed faith in ZANU-PF's drive for “total economic emancipation”, for economic prosperity, and employment opportunities for the indigenous African people of Zimbabwe. The bad blood between Zimbabwe and the West has much to do with the land grab by the long-suffering and hitherto landless indigenous Africans of Zimbabwe, and also because Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe did not look kindly on his country's comprador class. On the contrary, Mugabe's party stalwarts have vowed to redouble efforts to put assets into the hands of black Zimbabweans. “All resources must be for the benefit of our own people. We will no longer tolerate any exploitative relationship,” Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa declared. “We are going to continue with our message that our resources must come under the control of the people of Zimbabwe.” Mugabe's victory was applauded by Zimbabwe's giant neighbour South Africa, the continent's economic powerhouse. The African Union, too, approved of Zimbabwe's free and fair elections. Until Mugabe declared that enough was enough, 6,000 white commercial farmers owned roughly 45 per cent of Zimbabwe's land, and especially the most fertile land, leaving landless indigenous Africans to eke out a meagre existence. After land and mining grabs, Chinamasa has already singled out the country's foreign-owned banks as targets for indigenisation. “All the banks are British owned; that is why they are refusing to give credit to our people,” Chinamasa expounded. In sharp contrast, presenting his case as a landmark in the struggle against corruption and the fight for a return to the national prestige of Mali, Africa's third largest gold producer after South Africa and Ghana, former Malian prime minister Ibrahim Boubacar Keita won a decisive victory in the presidential poll run-off this week. Mali lost face when, after an Islamist insurgency in the northern wastelands of the country — rich in uranium, petroleum and other mineral deposits — the country was forced to rely on French troops to rid the land of militant Islamists. Recourse to the former colonial power, France, is a bitter pill to swallow. Nevertheless, the mood in Mali's capital Bamako was upbeat. Keita's rival, ex-finance minister Soumaila Cisse, unlike the morose Morgan Tsangirai of Zimbabwe, conceded defeat with dignity. He congratulated Keita and vowed to work for the betterment of the impoverished and war-torn West African nation. What Keita, though, has yet to make clear is how he intends to use his triumph.
