Tyranny trimmed

The elder statesman of Africa's despots and tyrants, Robert Mugabe, appears decidedly more vulnerable following the results of the Zimbabwean elections.

A credible opposition exists for the first time, with democratic parties winning 57 seats in the 150-member parliament -- a remarkable result considering they have never previously held more than three.

Even though the election brought improved fortunes for the democratic camp, which had been cast into the political wilderness for the past 20 years since independence from British rule, democracy was not the winner. Electoral monitors declared opposition supporters were intimidated; the election was neither free nor fair.

More than 30 people were killed in political violence during the four-month campaign that plumbed the depths of the politics of retribution and racial hatred with officially sanctioned invasions of farms owned by whites.

Worse still, the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union- Patriotic Front had already barred the Movement for Democratic Change from government, regardless of the result. Not that Mr. Mugabe should have been too worried about his party's majority -- he personally nominates 30 MPs.

Facing such an iron-grip on power, the challenge for an opposition coming to terms with the first blush of success will be to maintain the energy and support it has acquired since emerging in February, when it successfully defeated yet another presidential attempt to alter the constitution.

Significantly, the movement now has enough seats to deny Mr. Mugabe the two-thirds of seats in Parliament needed to approve constitutional changes, such as those he rammed through to grab white-owned farms. The President is certainly fond of constitutional change he has sponsored 16 amendments.

With Zimbabwe in its deepest recession since independence, the opposition is likely to continue to gain support if it can manage to remain focused on the economic crisis, as it did during the campaign. That should help the newly emerging forces for change survive any crackdown.

-- The South China Morning Post, Hong Kong