Johannesburg // For a man who has grown used to the pomp and circumstance of power over nearly three decades in office, it must have been a shock as well as a humiliation. As Robert Mugabe addressed the state opening of Zimbabwe's parliament this week, opposition MPs jeered and heckled him, drumming on the seats in front of them. At times he had to raise his voice to be heard above their singing "Zanu is rotten". At other times he was simply drowned out.
The event is supposed to be a grand occasion of state, in a chamber lined with green leather benches reminiscent of the House of Commons in London, albeit with two enormous elephant tusks rising from the floor on either side of the speaker's chair. Instead, after 28 years in office, Mr Mugabe was faced with an extraordinary scene. Unflinchingly, he carried on with his speech, stony-faced, but he is adept at covering up his feelings.
"The bottom line is the president must be very angry at what the opposition MPs did," said Eldred Masunungure, professor of political science at the University of Zimbabwe. Pointing out that the octogenarian worked as a teacher before becoming a revolutionary, he added: "It's like your pupils heckling at you. That's not acceptable. He is someone who worships order. It's very un-African. You don't do that to elders.
"He must be deeply offended, as an individual and as the president of the country." Yesterday the state-owned Herald newspaper, a government mouthpiece, denounced the opposition MPs' behaviour as "disgraceful", "uncivilised" and "like prepubescent youths at a football match". But while Mr Mugabe can and will seek to retain power for as long as possible, the reality is that for the first time since the opening round of Zimbabwe's elections in March, the momentum is in favour of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Then, it deprived Mr Mugabe's Zanu-PF party of its majority in the house of assembly, and its leader Morgan Tsvangirai defeated him in the presidential poll.
A campaign of violence followed - the MDC says more than 200 people have been killed - and Mr Tsvangirai was forced to pull out of the presidential runoff, which the authorities proclaimed Mr Mugabe won by a "landslide". Negotiations over power-sharing, mediated by Thabo Mbeki, the South African president, on behalf of the regional Southern African Development Community (SADC), then became deadlocked when Mr Mugabe refused to cede enough authority to draw in Mr Tsvangirai.
In an apparent effort to force the opposition's hand, the SADC gave Mr Mugabe the green light to convene parliament at a summit this month. But events then went dramatically wrong for the president. This week, Zanu-PF's MPs were instructed to vote for a candidate from a smaller MDC faction for speaker - a significant role in Zimbabwean politics - possibly in an attempt to draw the grouping into an agreement that would exclude Mr Tsvangirai.
Nonetheless, when the secret ballots were counted, the main MDC's Lovemore Moyo took the post, and it became clear that not only had the other opposition faction backed him, so had some members of Zanu-PF - an indication of divisions within Mr Mugabe's own party. "It's the first time that the opposition is controlling that august house with their own speaker," Mr Masunungure said. "It's highly significant. It signals a decisive shift in power away from Zanu-PF and towards the opposition, specifically Morgan Tsvangirai's MDC. He can no longer be ignored or treated as a disposable cog in the wheel, which I suspect Zanu-PF and Mbeki had been trying to do.
"Mugabe will read a lot into that message. He is likely to strike back and deal with those people he would regard as malcontents." Mr Masunungure expects the negotiations to restart sooner rather than later, but does not expect to see concessions from Mr Mugabe. "This depends on the balance of power between the hardliners and the moderates in the party," he said. "The hardliners are likely to be very, very angry with what the opposition did and the loss of the speakership. I think the hardliners will prevail on the president to harden the position and prevent Tsvangirai even being accepted in cabinet."
Mr Mugabe indicated the beginning of his fight back yesterday, when he told the Herald he would form a government "soon" and that "the MDC does not want to come in apparently". But while he can rule by decree, opposition control of parliament means he will not have matters all his own way. Under Zimbabwe's constitution, the lower house can hold a vote of no-confidence in the government. It is a double-edged sword - Mr Mugabe would not be obliged to resign in such an event and could, instead, choose to sack all his ministers or dissolve parliament. But the legislature can also remove the president from office, for violating the constitution, incapacity, or "gross misconduct".
The procedure requires one-third of the lower house to request it, a joint committee of both houses - appointed by the speaker - to prepare a report, and two-thirds of a joint sitting of both houses to approve it. The opposition is now in a position to complete the first two stages, albeit short of numbers for the final step - elected senators split 30/30, but there are 33 other chiefly appointed and former ex-officio members of the upper house who can be expected to support Mr Mugabe.
Even so, S'Thembiso Msomi, a commentator in South Africa's Times newspaper, said Mr Tsvangirai now had the advantage. "As for SADC leaders," he wrote, "instead of putting pressure on Tsvangirai to sign, they now have to lean on Mugabe to accept a watered-down presidency." @Email:sberger@thenational.ae
