Zimbabwe prepares for elections without Mugabe on ballot

It will be a first for Zimbabwe’s voters: the name of Robert Mugabe will not be on the ballot when elections are held on 30 July.

But the military- backed system that kept the former leader in power for decades, and then pushed him out, is still in control.

That is the conundrum facing a southern African country anxious to shed its image as an international pariah, and to draw the foreign aid and investment needed for an economic revival.

The government promises a free and fair vote and the military, whose 2017 takeover led to Mr Mugabe’s resignation, says it will not stray from the barracks.

Some Zimbabwe ans, t hough, wonder how much things have really changed.

They ask whether a political establishment accused of voterigging and state - sponsored violence over a generation would accept an election outcome – that is, an opposition victor y – that might damage its interests or even expose it to prosecution for alleged human rights abuses.

The military’ s economic interests include the alleged involvement of security forces in Zimbabwe’ s diamondmining sector, which Mr Mugabe himself once said had been plundered of billions of dollars in revenue.

Then there is the uneasy legacy of the militar y’s November takeover. It sent euphoric Zimbabweans into the streets to celebrate and was later described as a coup by Mr Mugabe, who quit as impeachment proceedings loomed in parliament.

The military intervention was mostly peaceful and tacitly supported by other countries, but critics compared it to letting a genie out of the bottle: Once the military steps brazenly into politics, why would it not do so again?

“Do you believe that people would risk their lives to carry out a coup, only to hand over power six months later to some unknown person ?” said Dewa Mavhinga, regional director for Human Rights Watch, at a recent forum on Zimbabwe in Johannesburg.

In this scenario, the “unknown person” would be Nelson Chamisa, the new leader of the MDC opposition party whose members were brutalised by ruling Zanu- PF party supporters during violent, fraud-tainted elections in 2008.

The establishment’s man is president Emmerson Mnangagwa, a former vice- pr esid en ta nd Mug abe ally who rewarded the mi lit ary’ s support with key Cabinet po sitions for former generals.

Mr Mnangagwa, who s ur - vived a deadly grenade attack at a campaign rally on 23 June, has said this election will not be like those under the 94- year- old Mr Mugabe, who had led Zimbabwe since independence from white minority rule in 1980.