Edward Stourton, Presenter: We’re joined now by the Foreign Office Minister Mark Malloch-Brown, Lord Malloch-Brown.  Good morning.

Lord Mark Malloch-Brown, Foreign Office Minister: Good morning, Edward.

ES: I don’t know whether you heard earlier on the programme our correspondent in Johannesburg speculating about the possibility that the South Africans had been talking to Robert Mugabe and to the opposition about the possibility of some kind of grand coalition.  What’s your view of either the likelihood or the desirability of that emerging in Zimbabwe?

LMB: Well, the South Africans have, or at least President Mbeki has been promoting that throughout this period, and indeed there’ve been talks between intermediaries and the two sides.  But it seems a long way off because Robert Mugabe’s version of it is one where he stays in charge; the opposition’s, very properly, is one where they take power and then invite parts of Mugabe’s party, the reformist part, to join them.  Because, after all, they won the first round and there’s no doubt that the MDC enjoy overwhelming popular support in the country, and if there were a free and fair election - a huge ‘if’ as you rightly report - they’d win overwhelmingly in a second round I suspect.

ES: Well from what you say I take it that you don’t think it’s very likely that that idea is going to fly very far; in which case, we are confronted with the likelihood that the elections will go ahead in some shape or form, but they probably won’t be free or fair and that Mr. Mugabe will win or declare himself the victor.  In which case he’s sort of got away with it really, hasn’t he?

LMB: Well first I, I think at one point both sides in Zimbabwe will have to come together and govern together, so I, I don’t want to rule that out, it’s just a matter of when and on what terms.  As to the election itself next week, you know I suspect, from the fact that there was a 55 per cent anti-Mugabe vote in the first round, and everything he’s done since has only outraged and offended his own people and his African neighbours, that in, that number has increased, say, just modestly by another 10 per cent.  That means he’d have a, the, the opposition would have a two to one lead in the popular vote.  That’s hard to steal and get away with it.  If he does steal it, and he’s obviously on track to try to with all these things he’s doing – throwing out UN workers, stopping local observers deploying, limiting the number of international ones, stopping opposition ads on the TV, arresting the opposition leaders – he obviously wants to steal it.  But he’s going to have to do it so visibly and ostentatiously and outrageously I think the world will, I hope, not let him get away with it.

ES: You, you’ve made a big assumption there about what’s happening in Zimbabwe and public opinion, even if you’re right about people’s feelings do you really think that that will be reflected in the way that they vote given what’s been happening, and continues to happen, in Zimbabwe?

LMB: Well, by the way, not that big an assumption.  I mean for the first time in Zimbabwe we saw the result of votes counted relatively cleanly…

ES: All right, let, let’s grant you…

LMB: …the opposition won…

ES: …let’s grant you your assumption.

LMB: Okay.

ES: In terms of people actually going into polling stations this second time, after all the intimidation, the pressure there’s been, do you really think that, that that sort of figure is going to vote for the opposition in this…

LMB: Well, Ed…

ES: …in this round?

LMB: Ed, I think it’s a very good question.  I mean people must feel disheartened and must wonder whether their votes will be allowed to count, must be making the sort of cost benefit analysis…

ES: Must be frightened.

LMB: …in their own mind, they must be frightened of the risk of going to vote.  Is it worth it if you don’t think your vote’s going to, be allowed to count?  So I’m sure all those things are going through people’s minds.  But, you know, the fact is they, they nevertheless did it in the first round, they took the risk, and my suspicion is, having punctured the authority and invincibility of Mugabe, having seen he could lose, that they will have the courage to come out despite these massive disadvantages.  The issue though will be, can the, the, the integrity of that vote be protected because he’s targeted the observers and is dismantling them in a very, very systematic way, and so that’s the challenge.  I think people will vote…

ES: And, and as ever we can do… we can do very little to influence that.

LMB: No, I think that’s, I hope, where you’re wrong in that, you know, throughout these bitter, difficult years, it’s always tended to be Britain versus Mugabe.  Now it’s really Mugabe versus the world.  His African neighbours are starting to speak out, the, the rest of the world is as appalled as we are by what’s happening.  I think were he…

ES: Lord Malloch-Brown, very briefly, sorry we, we must stop it there, I think we, we got the message, but thank you very much indeed for talking to us.

LMB: No, thank you.

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