The first time a dictatorship has been bought down by a popular vote?

[Matabele]

As much as I'd like this to be the case, I will believe it when I see it. 

Sent: Tuesday, 1 April 2008 4:27 AM
Subject: The Last Kicks of a Dying Horse

The Last Kicks of a Dying Horse

What a dramatic two days this has been. With voting over in the allotted
12 hours, counting has taken another 72 hours and in some cases the
Zimbabwe Electoral Commission is still verifying the vote results. In a
dramatic development the political masters in Zanu PF tried to force ZEC
to declare Mugabe the winner with 53 per cent of the vote and a Zanu PF
majority of 115 seats.

This information was sent to us by elements in Zanu PF and we made the
plan public at a press conference at 10.00 hrs today. But once again the
ZEC has come up trumps - they refused to gerrymander the results and are
slowly releasing the final results to the public. This appears to be an
effort to give the Zanu PF people a chance to "clean house" in advance
of what will be a fairly rapid transfer of power once the final figures
for the Presidential election are announced.

It would seem that the last minute desperate measures to frustrate a MDC
victory was made late yesterday and last night but has faded by this
morning. The best indication of that is that the heavy police presence
evident last night has faded and there are no police or army units on
the street today.

So at last it looks as if the ZEC will eventually announce that Morgan
Tsvangirai has won this election - I personally expect the final ZEC
tally to be 58 per cent for Morgan Tsvangirai, 27 per cent for Mugabe
and 15 per cent for Simba Makoni. I also expect that the final tally in
terms of the Parliamentary seats will be 115 for MDC, 12 for the
Mutambara group, 8 independents and 75 for Zanu PF. It is clear that
many of the Zanu PF seats were in fact rigged in their favor but ZEC is
accepting this as it was what I call "micro rigging" - in the sense that
they manipulated the numbers of people voting.

There were many ways in which they could do this - threats against the
population - "vote Zanu PF or else", multiple voting in remote areas
where there was insufficient supervision, the postal ballot and moving
people into key constituencies. We will have to look at all of these and
decide which we will take to court once the dust has settled.

But there can be no doubt this was a huge upset. Zanu seems to have been
dislodged by a variety of factors. They gerrymandered the electoral
districts giving the rural vote (their traditional source of power) a 2
to 1 advantage over the urban voter. Then they gerrymandered the voter's
roll and the distribution of polling stations. These measures were
overcome by two essential elements - a very high turn out of the voters
in urban areas (30 per cent of the voters roll but probably 65 per cent
of the actual number of registered voters that are still here) and a
very low turn out in rural districts (15 per cent or less). They also
underestimated the Makoni factor and he did much better than expected.

This was a referendum on Mugabe's leadership and even with all the
rigging and gerrymandering, he is now just so unpopular that he could
not be rescued. I doubt if he got 10 per cent of the vote, nationwide.
What we have witnessed in the last 24 hours are the last kicks of a
dying dynasty. I wonder what is going on right now behind those closed
doors!

{name of author witheld for obvious reasons}

 

[clontaago]

Mugabe 'ready to call it quits'

ZIMBABWEAN leader Robert Mugabe is ready to step down after he accepted he failed to win the country's presidential election, a senior source in his ruling party and diplomats said today.

An official in Mr Mugabe's ZANU-PF party said the long-ruling president was prepared to step down but was still trying to win agreement from the army's chief of staff Constantine Chiwenga.

"He is prepared to step down because he doesn't want to embarrass himself by going to a run-off," the source said on condition of anonymity.

"There is only one person still blocking him, the army chief of staff."

 

[clontaago]

Does this mean you are no longer an exile and will **** off back home?

 

[The Gronk]

Most importantly, does this mean they will have a reasonable cricket team again?

Interest rates are going up here in Australia because inflation is over 3%.  Over there inflation is 100000%. 

Yeah I will believe it when I see ti over there.  The army seems to have turned on him though which probably gives things a better chance of not being so violent.

 

[The Gronk]

gold

 

[Dan]

Yeah I don't think this will be the end

 

[The Gronk]

The other bloke doesn't seem that impressive though:


MORGAN Tsvangirai owes the wave of national adoration and the votes he won at the polls in part, at least, to the cruelty of President Robert Mugabe¿s regime.

People cite the “ABM factor” — Anybody but Mugabe could stand against the President in a free and fair election and win. But Mr Tsvangirai has established redeeming credentials.

Even before the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) was founded in 1999, the executive leader of the national labour movement had begun to be seen as the one to break Mr Mugabe’s hold on the state of Zimbabwe.

He was a Lech Walesa and a Frederick Chiluba — who brought the end of Zambia’s one-party state rule in 1991 — combined. He was lively, assertive and with a knack of leadership from more than a decade as the secretary-general of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions. More than that, he was the polar opposite of Mr Mugabe — amiable, approachable, brave, gregarious, quick to laugh and with an irreverently witty streak.

He had no basic education to speak of, leaving school at the age of 16. But he caught up with studies in middle- age, graduating in 2001 from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University with a diploma in the Executive Leaders In Development Program.
Mr Tsvangirai was the natural choice for the inaugural leadership of the MDC when it was founded in 1999. In 2000 he mobilised a movement against a draft constitution contrived by Mr Mugabe, posing the first credible threat to the Mugabe Government for 20 years.

He went on to propel the MDC in the next three elections to the point where Mr Mugabe could beat him only by murdering and maiming the movement’s supporters, and by vote-fixing.

But Morgan the Redeemer is unlikely to convert to Morgan the Fixer, able to restore the economy, rebuild infrastructure and take tough decisions on exchange rates and World Trade Organisation protocols.

Mr Tsvangirai’s record inside the party is poor. Party workers who have been with him for years describe him as vacillating, indecisive and, unlike Mr Mugabe, easily persuaded to change his views.

Three years after the party was founded he was reportedly being ruled by “the kitchen cabinet”, an informal clique of aides by whom party policy was decided, while the national executive committee was ignored.

In 2004 thugs loyal to the “kitchen cabinet” were assaulting their opponents, seizing their party vehicles and, on occasions, forcibly driving people out of the party headquarters and occupying the premises for several weeks. Mr Tsvangirai ignored appeals to stop the violence that was fouling his party’s reputation.

In 2005 the MDC split into two factions. The national executive committee was voting on whether to participate in elections for the new senate. The vote went against Mr Tsvangirai, who walked out in a fit of pique. In an astonishing act of dishonesty he told the waiting press that the committee had supported his position.

In January, during the last of numerous attempts to reunite the two factions, Mr Tsvangirai held out for only one more candidate than he has been offered in the elections; it was part of a pact jointly to field candidates with the other faction, led by Arthur Mutambara.

The plan was to avoid the obvious trap of splitting the opposition vote. The next morning Mr Tsvangirai, pressed by militants, was demanding 20 more seats. The pact collapsed.

The effect has been painfully apparent in the elections, with Mr Mugabe’s Zanu (PF) party taking about six seats that were needlessly contested by both MDC factions.

Morgan Tsvangirai

— Born in Gutu, Central Zimbabwe, the son of a bricklayer and the eldest of nine children

— Left school at 16 without qualifications. From 1974 worked in Bindura Nickel Mine, rising up through trade unions

— In 1984 he spent nine months in Britain, witnessed the miners strike and met Arthur Scargill

— In 1988 elected secretary-general of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU). He transformed it into a powerful opposition force

— In 1997 he organised a series of nationwide strikes against tax increases, provoking an attempt on his life

— In 1999 he formed the Movement for Democratic Change party and in 2002 narrowly lost the elections to Mugabe, inflicting an unprecedented blow to the Zanu-PF’s grip on power In the same year, he was secretly filmed allegedly discussing the president's 'elimination', leading to a treason charges of which he was finally acquitted in 2004

— The party split in two in 2005, key leaders charging Tsvangirai with poor leadership and inability to plan ahead

— He suffered a suspected fractured skull, brain injury and internal bleeding after police arrest last year for taking part in an allegedly illegal prayer meeting

 

[Fro]

Is he likely to actually go peacefuly Matas, or do you think he will junk the results and declare himself winner??

 

[Matabele]

I don't think Mugabe will let go of power that easily.  My brother is over there currently and I'm basically living on high alert to shanghai him out of the place if the violence starts.  Though it does seem Mugabe has lost control of 2/3rds of the armed forces. 

Tsvangirai is not a wonderful option.  To be honest I was hoping Makoni was the real deal and would win.  However, if Tsvangirai has enough sense to tap into the enormous groundswell of goodwill that will be there from the diaspora and does what he's told things will go better.

Clon, if I can extract myself from things here I would love to go back and fix the mess. 

 

[The Gronk]

harsh but fair...

 

[Matabele]

A tiger skin???????????

 

[The Gronk]

Didn't know that there were too many tigers in Africa

 

[ManlyBacker]

Yep, that cartoonist isn't big on geography, but it could always have been based on a meeting in a London colonial club.

The new guy didn't impress. Who was the one up on rape and sexual harassment charges?

 

[Matabele]

The new guy didn't impress. Who was the one up on rape and sexual harassment charges?

  He's the next Mugab..... oops I mean PM of South Africa.