Zimbabwe’s Fraud Watch | Newsweek International

Fraud Watchers

Newsweek Web Exclusive

Email To A Friend

Please fill in the following information and we'll email this link.

SPONSORED BY

The Independent Results Centre has been ahead of the ZEC in announcing figures. It has Tsvangirai winning 58 percent of the presidential vote against 37 percent for Mugabe and 5 percent for Makoni. It says that the MDC won 117 of the 187 seats in Parliament, ZANU-PF won 50, and independent candidates or a splinter MDC group won 20.

In mid-March, Libyan leader Muammar Kaddafi suggested that liberation war hero Mugabe should be allowed to stay in power until he dies and not be "disturbed" by elections. Zimbabweans apparently don't agree. Perhaps encouraged by the mediation this past summer, they have turned out in greater numbers than in the last presidential elections in 2002, observers say, though figures were unavailable. "Turnout has been low," says Makumbe, "but it would have been much lower if people had felt that there was no point at all in going to the polls." If it appears that the election was rigged, many Zimbabweans might also begin to wonder why they bothered.

« Prev Page

One can readily undertsand the feelings of native people after they have achived independence and learn that the best land is in thehandsof foreigners who came in and bought theland years before.

But evivcting these land owners and putting the land in charge of natives who do not have the skills to run the farms successfully was a stupid political move on Mugabe's part. He should have known better.

Legally he could have ordered the farm owners to take on a numberof natives, train them how to run a profitable farm, then buy the farms back from the white foreigners. This would have taken byt a few years, avoiding all bloodshed. The result would have been a gradually transition of native people in charge and running succssful food producing farms.

Mugabe is so much Amin , someone who has no knowledge of arbitation or diplomacy. His only tactiic is strong armed violence which never succeeds in the end.

How an educated man like Mugabe would not have intelligent advisors on his staff who would guide him through the minefield of problems following independence is a mystery to me. Almost any hired diplomat would be able to have avoided the misery and chaos that hastaken place in that African country.

Member Comments

- Reply
- Report Abuse
Posted By: getzel @ 04/01/2008 3:16:36 PM

What do Mugabe and the current US president have in common?

They both come from a long line of Bush people.

Intelligence analyst: Getzel
- Reply
- Report Abuse
Posted By: ronmac60 @ 04/01/2008 12:42:47 PM

One can readily undertsand the feelings of native people after they have achived independence and learn that the best land is in thehandsof foreigners who came in and bought theland years before.

But evivcting these land owners and putting the land in charge of natives who do not have the skills to run the farms successfully was a stupid political move on Mugabe's part. He should have known better.

Legally he could have ordered the farm owners to take on a numberof natives, train them how to run a profitable farm, then buy the farms back from the white foreigners. This would have taken byt a few years, avoiding all bloodshed. The result would have been a gradually transition of native people in charge and running succssful food producing farms.

Mugabe is so much Amin , someone who has no knowledge of arbitation or diplomacy. His only tactiic is strong armed violence which never succeeds in the end.

How an educated man like Mugabe would not have intelligent advisors on his staff who would guide him through the minefield of problems following independence is a mystery to me. Almost any hired diplomat would be able to have avoided the misery and chaos that hastaken place in that African country.
- Reply
- Report Abuse
Posted By: paulte @ 04/01/2008 11:08:02 AM

Hopefully, this time with the photos of the election results, the ruling party won't be able to rig the election as they are wont to do. But I don't see Mugabe going quietly. There probably will be bloodshed before the nightmare in that country comes to an end. South Africa should grant him exile status, not that he deserves it but in order to avert bloodshed and to enable this demoralized country to begin the re-building process without him around!