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Zimbabwe

My Lords, the noble Baronesses have made very important points. They both understand that we speak in this House today under some constraint. There is often a complaint that in the Lords we do not have an audience. Today, we do. I shall quote from this morning’s Zimbabwean newspaper, the Herald: "““Almost the entire British state machinery—from the BBC to its House of Commons—was almost going hysterical over the delay in announcing the election results by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission””." Apparently, the debate yesterday in the other place was broadcast live in Zimbabwe and repeated throughout the evening. Therefore, as we discuss the issue today, we do so under the burden that those who would seek to prolong the current stalemate in Zimbabwean politics and those who would resist change will fall on anything that we say to try to convert what should be a judgment on the will of the Zimbabwean people into a diversion about whether the British are ““up to it again””. Therefore, as the two noble Baronesses have done, we need to pick our words carefully and avoid anything that can feed these last-minute tactics of a failed regime in Zimbabwe. I turn to the points that have been made. As has been reported in the press, ZANU-PF has indeed, with the completion of the returns for the lower House, lost its majority. That is the good news, but the bad news is that the results have not given the MDC a clear majority. It will be dependent on independent votes to govern with a majority, so we face a prospect of a rather unstable situation in the lower House. Whether the vote count was done fairly remains to be seen. Certainly, we have heard that the MDC and the Civil Society Network, which also made a poll analysis, both suspect that at the very least some of the majorities notched up in the seats that ZANU-PF won have been inflated and exaggerated. However, the broader point is that this election was inherently unfair from the beginning. Far from there being a level playing field, it was, as a diplomat said to me today, more of a slalom course. Millions of people could not vote because they were outside the country; opposition leaders were allowed access to the media in a significant way only in the last days of the campaign; up to 20 per cent of electors in some constituencies were barred from voting on the pretence that their names were not on the register; and perhaps the same number of dead people voted. All that makes it an extraordinary achievement for the Opposition—and the people of Zimbabwe—that they have prevailed and won the lower House election against all the odds. One knows that if one was to assume what the real vote of the people of Zimbabwe was, it would reflect a runaway victory for the Opposition. That brings me to the questions about what happens next. Clearly, at this point there are two possible outcomes. One is that there is a second round—that President Mugabe insists that Morgan Tsvangirai has not crossed the 50 per cent mark in the first round and demands the right to challenge him in a second round. If that were to happen, there would be a clear need to ensure the deployment of a much strengthened international observer. In the first round, the Zimbabweans did not allow observers from Europe, let alone from the United Kingdom. They allowed to be present only those whom they saw as observers from friendly neighbouring countries. I think that those same friendly neighbours would be the first to agree with us that, in the case of a second round, they would need the assistance of other international observers, from Europe and elsewhere. With a leader who has ruled in the way that President Mugabe has for the past 28 years, it is impossible to conceive of him winning unless there were a massive effort to steal the election result. Therefore, it would be very important to put in a strong observer presence to ensure that the SADC principles of free elections were respected. If, on the other hand, Mr Tsvangirai has indeed triumphed on the first round and has crossed the 50 per cent mark or if President Mugabe chooses not to contest the second round, then the need immediately to try to support a new Government with humanitarian assistance and longer-term reconstruction assistance is critical and urgent. I think that the United Kingdom is well placed to assist in that. We are already the second-largest humanitarian donor, and we helped the WFP to feed 3 million people last year—almost a quarter of the population of Zimbabwe. One can expect to see that programme expanded in the immediate short term after the devastating impact on the economy of these elections. We have just contributed to emergency drug purchases for the country and we have plans to step up and expand that emergency humanitarian operation. Secondly, if, as I say, there is a transfer of power to a democratically elected Government who move quickly to stabilise and restructure the economy, we have every intention of being major development partners—both as a principal bilateral donor and through our role as the largest donor to the World Bank and the African Development Bank. This morning’s report to which the noble Baroness referred muddled dollars with pounds. The estimate is that the absorptive capacity of Zimbabwe in these early stages will probably rise to $1 billion next year and perhaps $1.3 billion in the year after that before levelling out and subsequently falling. It is expected that Britain will play a major part in providing the finance for that both bilaterally and through our multilateral efforts. I say ““a”” major, not ““the”” major, because this will be an internationally shared activity in which we would expect many others to play their role. I can certainly assure the noble Baroness that there is no intention of this being a short-term effort or of it taking second place to other priorities. I think that everyone in this House and the other place is combined in our desire to see Zimbabwe—that formerly prosperous country—put back on its feet and able to enjoy the economic opportunity that it justly deserves after all that has happened. The omens look better than they have in quite a long time: finally, the long nightmare of the people of Zimbabwe is coming to an end.