In news out of Zimbabwe, the country’s finance minister, who is also the opposition MDC party’s secretary-general, escaped unharmed from a car crash involving a truck. You’ll recall that last year, opposition leader and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai was involved in a similar accident that took the life of his wife. Tsvangirai walked away with minor injuries.
The news here is the timing of the accident, which comes on the heels of a visit by South African President Jacob Zuma, newly invested in mediation efforts to implement Zimbabwe’s long-stalled power-sharing government. I’ve followed some of Zuma’s interventions in the Off-the-Radar posts, but they include advocating on behalf of Zimbabwe for the lifting of EU and IMF sanctions. That suggests that Zuma’s expecting some concrete results in the final report to be delivered by the principal Zimbabwean negotiatiors at the end of March.
Obviously not every car accident is an attempted hit. But this one doesn’t smell right, and I suspect the tell will be Pretoria’s reaction. Zuma has put his neck out for Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. An assassination attempt on the opposition’s no. 2 man would not be the kind of payback he’s looking for.