Transition:

Veteran opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai apparently got the most votes in the first round of presidential balloting in Zimbabwe Saturday, a result that reaffirms the potency of the voting booth — even where bribery, intimidation, and biased state-run media preclude fair elections. Whether President Robert Mugabe will actually go is a different question.

One simple reform made it clear that a majority rejected Mugabe after 28 years of his disastrous misrule: This weekend, each of the country’s 9,000 polling stations posted its own tally. Opposition poll observers and the general public were able to see and add up the separate vote totals. So the Mugabe-controlled electoral commission could not receive all the unannounced results, perform an unmonitored count, and proclaim that the despoiler had been re-elected.

The African Union and democratic countries elsewhere should do everything possible to help foster a peaceful transition in Zimbabwe. If this means assuring Mugabe and his henchmen safe haven despite their crimes and misdeeds, the benefits to the impoverished populace in Zimbabwe could make such a cheating of justice worthwhile. And if Mugabe does depart peaceably, Zimbabwe will need a great deal of economic aid that must be managed competently and honestly. — The Boston Globe