Six months before scheduled elections, Zimbabwe is closer
than ever to complete collapse. Inflation is between
7,600 per cent (government figures) and 13,000 per cent
(independent estimates). Four out of five of the country’s
twelve million people live below the poverty line and
a quarter have fled, mainly to neighbouring countries. A
military-led campaign to slash prices has produced acute
food and fuel shortages, and conducting any business is
becoming almost impossible. An initiative launched by
the regional intergovernmental organisation, the Southern
African Development Community (SADC), to facilitate a
negotiated political solution offers the only realistic chance
to escape a crisis that increasingly threatens to destabilise
the region. But SADC must resolve internal differences
about how hard to press into retirement Robert Mugabe,
Zimbabwe’s 83-year-old president and liberation hero,
and the wider international community needs to give it
full support.
