By Ross Herbert and Peter Fabricius
Harare - Robert Mugabe, the embattled Zimbabwean president, can no longer count on his army to defend him against the sort of popular uprising which brought down Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and Ivory Coast President Robert Guei earlier this month, some security analysts believe.
The sudden fall of Milosevic inspired dissidents in the Ivory Coast to rise up against Guei when he stole the presidential elections this week and both events are emboldening Mugabe's growing legion of opponents to attempt the same solution in Zimbabwe.
Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the chief opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which came close to upsetting the ruling Zanu-PF party in this June's elections, has taken to branding Mugabe as "Africa's Milosevic". The MDC is preparing rolling mass action to try to force him from power.
As a new opinion poll showed this week, Mugabe is deeply unpopular. It found 74 percent of people thought he should step down and 56 percent thought he should be tried for alleged crimes.
Many analysts believe, though, that the wily Mugabe will avoid Milosevic and Guei's fate. As angry as some of Mugabe's opponents might be, he retains important assets that militate against his removal from power by a wave of people power, they say. One is the geography of Harare.
The restive high density townships are isolated far from Mugabe's vast State House complex. And his residence is surrounded by army barracks and park land. To succeed, mass protests would have to come out of the townships into the city centre, but the few roads from the townships offer choke points easily blocked by troops.
Crucially, Mugabe appears to retain the firm loyalty of the top military officers. In Yugoslavia and the Ivory Coast security forces switched sides, tipping the balance of power. Mugabe has worked long and hard at retaining the loyalty of his security forces.
Recently he incorporated the war veterans, who were the ruling party's election shock troops, into a formal army reserve force. As the veterans are the most militant backers of Zanu-PF, analysts and opposition party organisers see that move as an important signal that Mugabe is preparing for battle over the 2002 presidential elections.
South African officials also believe the MDC does not have the power or ability to mobilise sufficient numbers of citizens to threaten Mugabe's hold on power or to brave the bullets they might face from Mugabe's security forces.
But Richard Cornwell, a senior researcher at the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies, who has just returned from a field trip to Zimbabwe, believes that the MDC will not have to mobilise the Zimbabwean people as they will rise spontaneously against the government. And they will find ways of getting to State House if they are determined enough.
He says while the very top ranks of the Zimbabwean Defence Force remain loyal to Mugabe, the second echelon of officers are losing faith in him as rapidly as ordinary citizens are.
"I think a lot of them are also unhappy with the way they were shipped off to the Congo and left to fend for themselves; to die in much larger numbers than have been reported. The professional soldiers also resent the politicisation of the army. To count on those people firing on their own friends and relatives, would be dodgy."
"There is no sign of any disloyalty in the army but like everyone else they are effected adversely by the economy. They have to buy the same bread as everyone else," said Greg Linington, a lecturer in the political science department at the University of Zimbabwe. "I get the feeling things are bubbling up. It is not just going to carry on and on like a soap opera that doesn't end," he said.
On Friday in Zimbabwe, after violent bread riots and impeachment proceedings were launched against Mugabe in parliament, opinion polls showed his plummeting popularity.
Will Mugabe stay in power until he dies or be rudely shown the exit? The uncertain answer seems to lie in the subtle Zimbabwean character. - Foreign Service