Zimbabwe Leader Sworn In

Sounding a note of reconciliation in the wake of a bitterly contested election, veteran President Robert Mugabe was sworn in here Sunday for another six years at a ceremony boycotted by Western diplomats and the country’s political opposition.

Addressing senior ruling party officials and dignitaries from neighboring African nations, Mugabe called on all Zimbabweans to unite, regardless of their politics, but made no mention of a possible coalition government.

“Our country beckons us to join hands in a formidable unity of purpose as we vigorously engage in our various national endeavors,” Mugabe, 78, said as he began his fifth term in office.

In power since Zimbabwe won independence from Britain in 1980, Mugabe was declared the winner of this month’s election Wednesday after three days of voting that international and local observers condemned as massively flawed.

His inauguration came as Presidents Thabo Mbeki of South Africa and Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, who were due to arrive in Harare today, stepped up diplomatic efforts to prevent Zimbabwe’s possible suspension from the Commonwealth, the association of Britain and its former territories, because of the election’s perceived irregularities.

Official results gave Mugabe 56% of the vote, compared with 42% for Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, or MDC, who called the election “daylight robbery.”

“The position of our national executive is that the official election result is illegitimate and does not reflect the true will of the people of Zimbabwe,” said MDC Secretary-General Welshman Ncube.

Mugabe used his swearing-in as another opportunity to launch a scathing attack on Britain, accusing it of trying to impose a government on the southern African nation and vowing that “never again shall Zimbabwe be a colony.”

“We have dealt a stunning blow to imperialism,” said Mugabe, whose ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front, or ZANU-PF, has accused Tsvangirai of being a stooge of Western powers. He added: “You certainly have been able to see how Britain and its white allies have blatantly sought to ensure that this last presidential election be won by their protege.”

Opposition leaders said the often antagonistic tone of the president’s speech proved that he and his party were only halfheartedly extending a hand of friendship.

“Clearly ZANU-PF is unrepentant,” Ncube said. “They are still in their combative mood. They are blaming everybody for their own incompetence. There is absolutely nothing reconciliatory about that. It’s the old ZANU-PF on the warpath against so-called imperialism and on the warpath against people who have rejected ZANU-PF.”

Ncube said the MDC had dismissed any idea of taking part in a coalition government because that would serve to endorse what the opposition party and others view as Mugabe’s stolen victory.

“A government of national unity that accepts the results of the election, that would put him in power for another six years, is not something that we are in a position to negotiate about,” Ncube said.

He said the opposition might be willing to join a “national transitional government,” which would use a determined period of time to work on a new constitution and pave the way for another presidential election.

Without such a scenario in the cards, analysts said, it would be up to Mugabe to deal with Zimbabwe’s pressing social and economic issues.

Inflation has soared to an annualized rate of about 117%, and unemployment has topped 60%. A severe shortage of maize, the main diet for ordinary Zimbabweans, has left more than 500,000 in need of food assistance.

Mugabe “has to respond to the crisis in his country and embark on a program of reform,” said Richard Calland, a senior political analyst at the Institute for Democracy in South Africa. “What our polling shows is that Zimbabweans are sick and tired of worsening levels of poverty and unemployment, and they want a government that can put them in a position that would allow the economy to grow.”

On Sunday, Mugabe promised to do just that by creating more jobs, increasing agricultural production, promoting black empowerment and speeding the government’s controversial land reform program, which seeks to wrest land from the white minority for the resettlement of landless blacks.

“The land reform program must proceed with greater speed and strength so the losses and drawbacks of the current drought-ridden season can be overcome,” he said.

White commercial farmers own an estimated 70% of Zimbabwe’s best farmland. Proponents of land reform say those farmers have had it too good for too long.

“They make a lot of money,” said Sam Moyo, an independent local political analyst who has written extensively on land reform. “They don’t need to sit on all of that land to make that money. It’s better to redistribute it, so that other people use it and make money and become self-subsistent.”

“Realistically, the only way that Mugabe is going to deliver on the land issue is with international support, and he is going to have to do that through South Africa,” said Francis Kornegay, program coordinator at the Center for Africa’s International Relations at the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa.

A regional economic powerhouse that still commands respect from the West, South Africa is seen by analysts as the key to helping Zimbabwe get back on the path of good governance. If it failed to do that and Zimbabwe became a rogue state, South Africa would probably share the negative consequences, including a halt in international financial engagement in the continent, the analysts say.

“There is a contagion effect,” Calland said. “Perceptions are very important in business, and the international investor community tends to adopt quite a crude analysis.”

“The South African government may not like it, but the reality is that it will be harder to aid the continent if Americans perceive that South Africa and the region [are] unwilling to stand up for democratic principles,” Republican U.S. Rep. Ed Royce of Fullerton said in a statement last week.

On Sunday, Mugabe thanked African nations that endorsed his reelection for their “joint effort in rejecting neocolonialism,” and he called for the solidarity to continue.

“We will continue to need your support in the future, possibly even in the immediate future, as imperialist maneuvers against Zimbabwe persist,” he said.