A Lion Meets His Winter

In the townships of Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, political graffiti is starting to appear. Next to election posters for Robert Mugabe, unseen hands have scrawled messages to the President. One declares simply, "Zuakwana," meaning "enough." After 28 years, Mugabe's time leading Zimbabwe may finally be nearing an end. Though results from a March 29 general election dribbled out slowly, the state-run Herald newspaper acknowledged that Mugabe had not won a majority of votes for the presidency and predicted a runoff with Morgan Tsvangirai, the opposition leader. If the votes are counted cleanly, Tsvangirai will almost certainly win a second round.

That is still a big if. Mugabe could deploy the security forces, as he has before, to try to cling to power. But a wind of change is in the air. Once one of Africa's most prosperous nations, Zimbabwe has been wrecked by Mugabe's disastrous policies. Inflation is running at an annual rate of more than 100,000%, and millions have left for havens elsewhere.

If this really is the beginning of the end for Mugabe, it will have significance throughout Africa, where the years since Ghana first won its freedom in 1957 have been a serial, tragic disappointment, marked by war, genocide, poverty and famine. At the root of them all was ruinous leadership. With few exceptions, Africa's postindependence leaders wrested their continent back from colonial rule only to plunder it afresh. Contemptuous of their own people and often destined for a bloody end, many contrived to make their nations poorer than they were in colonial times.

While autocrats still control Sudan and Equatorial Guinea, Mugabe is the last of that Old Guard of former freedom fighters. His passing would befit an Africa that is entering a new era characterized by democracy, peace, robust economic growth and a fresh generation of capable leaders like Liberia's Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. Few nations have suffered more from the failures of the generation that led Africa to independence than Zimbabwe, and no people more than Zimbabweans deserve the type of leadership that is transforming the continent for the better.