AS was anticipated by the Movement For Democratic Change (MDC), the beleaguered Zimbabwean Opposition Party, Robert Mugabe has once again run roughshod over that country's political process and essentially usurped the office of the presidency by way of a fraudulent election - an election in which he was the only candidate.

Originally Opposition Leader Morgan Tsvangirai had agreed to contest the so-called run off election which was called for in the wake of an earlier ballot in which Mugabe's ZANU-PF sustained heavy losses. Indeed, there was enough clear evidence to point to the fact Mugabe, in all probability, lost the Presidency.

And this is the reason why the people of Zimbabwe never heard the true results of that election only that the results were "too close" to declare a real winner in the political contest.

Perhaps it was a miscalculation (or just his characteristic arrogance) that led Mugabe to think he had the first election in the bag. But he and his henchmen in the military, the police and his paramilitary forces, the so-called war veterans, the shock troops of terror, who do the bidding of the dictator, soon got over their surprise and set about terrorising the people of Zimbabwe in order to force them to vote for the sitting President in the run-off.

The violence was so open that it seems Mugabe's thugs did not even make token efforts to cover up their atrocities 80 members of the MDC were killed; and 250,000 Zimbabweans viewed as potential supporters of the Opposition were forced to flee their homes and become internal refugees within their own country.

MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai himself was forced to seek shelter in the Dutch embassy for fear of his life, while his deputy leader was arrested by the Mugabe regime for treason, along with thousands of others who were jailed in the weeks preceding the run-off election. It's bitterly ironic these freedom fighters and their supporters are now suffering precisely the same fate as the nationalist guerillas killed and jailed during the liberation war to free Zimbabwe from the Ian Smith's minority white regime during the 1960s and '70s.

And Mugabe still considers himself to be, first and foremost, a freedom fighter and the father of his nation despite the national calamity he has brought upon the people of Zimbabwe.

How does such a leader maintain the delusion that he is the rightful leader of his country, despite the clear evidence of the widespread destruction his policies have wrought upon the nation?

South African writer and journalist Heidi Holland was one of the last Western reporters to be granted an interview with Robert Mugabe. Her comments can be found on the BBC News web site. She sees Mugabe as a man who is increasingly detached from the grim realities swirling around him and his role in creating them. Despite his ranting and raving against the British, blaming them for the current state of his country, in his mind he seems to harbour a love-hate relationship with the old colonial power and longs for the time when he feels relations can become more cordial.

He seems to think that once he embarked on his policy to displace Zimbabwe's white farmers, the British would then negotiate with him. He blames the failure of the British to pursue such a path for the fate that has overtaken the white farming community in Zimbabwe and not his misguided policy. Because the fact is, that far from bringing justice to Zimbabwe's land-deprived black majority, far from righting an old colonial wrong, he has created the conditions for the ruination of a once self-supporting nation that could have stood as an example to the rest of Africa.

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Given his love-hate relationship with the British, the Queen might have been on to something when she recently stripped Mugabe of his honorary knighthood a move that no doubt had a more significant impact on his psyche than the suffering of his own people.

Despite his brazen theft of the democratic birthright of the people of Zimbabwe, in the aftermath of the run-off election we did not see the swagging, arrogant Mugabe we are used to seeing. News reports seem to indicate that it was a subdued Robert Mugabe who made his way to the African Union Conference that was being held in Egypt after he was sworn in for another term as President. He seemed to have had some apprehensions as to what he may face from his fellow African leaders. That is why he threatened to point an accusing finger back at any potential detractors he encountered at the meeting. But he needn't have worried. It is a sad reality that there are many Robert Mugabes leading nations in Africa who probably would not be in power if they had to face a true democratic elections in their countries.

I always separate the people of Africa from their undeserving political leadership. Nelson Mandela was right when he stated that there was a failure of political leadership in Zimbabwe, but the great man could have gone further. There is a failure of principled political leadership throughout Africa and the people of that great continent continue to suffer as a result.

The sad truth is that more than half of Africa is ruled by undemocratic governments who do not owe their existence to the democratic process. We need not go further than the host country for the AU Meeting, Egypt. President Hosni Mubarak has been in power since the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981. He has never faced a true democratic election and there is talk that when he goes he expects his son to assume power.

If Robert Mugabe can be confident that no one in Africa can hold him to account, and again I am talking about the continent's political leadership, the West for all its outrage over the situation in Zimbabwe cannot rise about its own hypocrisy for if you are an African leader who is sitting on oil in your country or other important raw materials, or you have a role to play in somebody's war on terror; than you are likely to get a past, no matter how you treat your own people. Your friends in the West will protect you.

China is only the most recent player in this regard Beijing is relentlessly seeking the riches under the soil of Africa which are at once a blessing and the same time a curse for the people of Africa.

Yet only Africa can save itself. But where is the leadership that can fulfil that role? In the words of the African Ayi Kwei Armah; as he wrote about the condition of the continent in the immediate aftermath of decolonisation; it remains regretfully true today, "The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born."