How long can Robert Mugabe hold on?

RHODESIAN town planners were a wily bunch. They made sure that black slums were a long way from the centre of town. That way, if there was a protest against white rule, a few road-blocks could stop the protesters from coming near the seat of government. Robert Mugabe, the man who overthrew the old racist regime, must be grateful.

He does not sound it: he has just declared that the old white leaders should be tried for genocide. But as Zimbabwe’s president, he lives in the grand old buildings that the settlers vacated two decades ago. Like his predecessors, he is widely hated. The townships, or “high-density suburbs”, around Harare are packed with angry people who would dearly love to oust him. Witness the bread riots that battered the capital last week. The police were able to keep the masses out of stone-throwing range of his mansions. But for how long?

The president may have bought himself some time by stealing the parliamentary election in June, but probably not much. Thanks to his mismanagement, the Zimbabwean economy is shedding jobs in the same profusion as the jacaranda trees in Harare shed their purple petals on to the streets. The Matabeleland Chamber of Industries recently predicted that half of its member-firms would close by Christmas.

Even those Zimbabweans who still have jobs find it hard to make ends meet. Real wages are shrinking fast. The prices of bread and fuel leapt by a third this month, setting off the riots in the townships. Mr Mugabe sent in his troops to punish the protesters. Teargas was sprayed on rioters and bystanders alike. Soldiers marched from door to door, dragging out anyone who looked young enough to be a rioter for a clubbing. Four foreign journalists were whipped and told to mind their own business. The rioting was quelled. But similar protests erupted in Mutare, an eastern city, on October 23rd.

As belts tighten, tempers shorten. Those who cannot afford bread currently eat sadza, a dull but filling maize paste. If maize grows too dear, Zimbabweans will go hungry. Alas, this is likely. The peasants who sold their maize surplus to the government in June have not been paid, so they have no cash to buy seeds or fertiliser. Shortages are expected early next year.

The mood in the cities is thunderous. If Mr Mugabe were foolish enough to walk around Mbare, a Harare slum that saw heavy rioting last week, he would hear views ranging from “Mugabe should step down” to “Mugabe should be prosecuted for murder”. Housewives, street-traders, nurses and sewing-machine operators all say that when the time comes they will rally against the president. It is harder to intimidate urban dissidents than peasants, because they live closer to large numbers of their friends, and their brick houses are harder to torch.

Nationwide, Mr Mugabe is as popular as a scorpion in a bathroom. A poll released on October 25th by the Helen Suzman Foundation, a South African think-tank, found that almost all Zimbabweans disapproved of the government’s handling of the economy, and that three-quarters wanted Mr Mugabe to resign. Even Zimbabwean businessmen are calling for a general strike.

But the main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), is unsure what to do. The presidency is not up for election until 2002. MDC leaders talk of “mass action” but hesitate to organise big rallies, for two reasons. First, they fear that Mr Mugabe will declare a state of emergency and lock them all up. Second, they fear that he will gun down their supporters. Mr Mugabe did not flinch from murdering some 20,000 dissidents in Matabeleland in the 1980s, so this is no idle fear.

In an attempt to remove the president peacefully, the MDC started impeachment proceedings on October 25th. The case against Mr Mugabe is watertight, but there is little chance of success. Even before the motion reaches parliament, which is dominated by the ruling party, it can be easily killed by the speaker, who is one of Mr Mugabe’s closest allies.

The best the MDC can reasonably hope for is to embarrass the president with a parliamentary debate on his personal defects. These include the persistent flouting of court orders, the flamboyant corruption of his relatives, the use of presidential amnesties to free his hired thugs to terrorise the opposition anew, and the dispatch of 12,000 troops to a useless war in Congo without consulting the cabinet.

Mr Mugabe responded to the impeachment measures by threatening to prosecute white Zimbabweans who fought against him in the independence war. He named two senior MDC members, neither of whom did any actual fighting. He also declared that it was time to revoke the policy of reconciliation between black and white citizens.

There is a danger that, if the MDC fails to co-ordinate urban protests, these will erupt spontaneously, and turn violent. Some people within the MDC accuse their leaders of cowardice for not mobilising the township crowds. But caution is in order. Mr Mugabe is as cunning as he is ruthless.