For the last 10 years, Zimbabwe has been in the grip of a downward economic vortex. Most citizens set aside their desires to make Zimbabwe a better place, focusing instead on surviving to the next day when basic political conditions like property rights, the rule of law, freedom of expression, and an independent judiciary were undermined.

Yesterday, however, Zimbabweans voted in a general election that is one of the first windows of opportunity for political change in the last 8 years. In spite of the fact that the pre-election conditions have been grossly unfair, early results are pointing to an MDC (opposition) landslide win and it appears that Mugabe is having more trouble than he anticipated subverting the will of the people. According to the BBC:

An MDC spokesperson] said the electoral commission was planning to announce that Mr Mugabe had won 52% of the vote - just enough to avoid a run-off. The MDC would not accept these results, he said. Deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga denied the polls would be rigged and said the president would accept defeat. "We don't expect to lose... It's going to be a very tight contest and if he loses, you have to accept," he told the BBC. Mr Matonga also denied rumours that Mr Mugabe had gone to Malaysia or was planning to impose a state of emergency. Riot police have been patrolling the capital, Harare, and other urban areas and residents have been told to stay indoors. A senior Zanu-PF source has told a BBC contributor that security officials met on Sunday to decide who should tell Mr Mugabe he had lost, with some refusing to take the job.

Apart from the immediate humanitarian issues, political change is particularly important to Zimbabwe’s wildlife, much of which has been poached and destroyed over the last 10 years. In a country where the commercial agricultural sector has been decimated, wildlife through tourism and hunting operations has the potential to form up to 16% of the GDP. This economic sector requires very little financial outlay, just restoration of the rule of law and good wildlife management practices. Restoring populations of Zimbabwe’s rich mammal fauna like giraffes, zebras, eland, impala, wild dogs and rhinos will take time, and so will tourists' bruised confidence in the country. Compared to the other economic sectors which may require years of complex legal battles and unresolved disputes to sort out, however, the 5-10 year timeframe and minimal investments needed for recovery of this economic sector should be a no-brainer for the new government.

Help is also available from the foreign conservation NGO’s that are eyeing out a ‘virgin’ African country with good infrastructure and a great potential ‘bang for their conservation buck’ if they can quickly establish an on-the-ground presence. They can see that Zimbabwe has a huge amount of potential and they are eager to take credit for re-building what was the continent’s greatest conservation success story. Should Mugabe have the good sense to relinquish his 28-year grip on power, the new government led by Morgan Tsvangirai should make recovery of Zimbabwe’s rich wildlife heritage an early priority. For the last 4 years I have worked with a group of 200+ conservationists from Zimbabwe established to document the decline of Zimbabwe’s wildlife populations and to conduct initial policy assessments for recovering the wildlife industry.

Brian Gratwicke is a regular contributor to davidmixner.com. Gratwicke is a Rhodes Scholar who is in exile from Zimbabwe.