Here are some results from the elections in the Senate in Zimbabwe. ZANU-PF, so far, has a lead.

Regarding the post in the previous thread in which ZANU officials claim that the MDC bribed electoral officials, here is a link on the story from The Independent.

On the other side of things, it looks like the MDC is going ahead with its court actions intended to compel the Electoral Commission to announce the results. However, as this article points out, that's a bit tricky as ZEC chief elections officer, Utoile Sailagwana, pointed out:

"Sailagwana gave the example of Binga in Matabeleland North Province which he said could only be accessed by helicopter."

What a mess.

[ 05 April 2008: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]

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Originally posted by N.Beltov:

"Sailagwana gave the example of Binga in Matabeleland North Province which he said could only be accessed by helicopter."

What a mess.

[ 05 April 2008: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]

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NY Times article

The article doesn't identify the author so, presumably, it's probably another Times reporter without accreditation in Zimbabwe. It also connects the economy's "collapse" with the confiscation of the large, commercial farms of white farmers, but (tellingly) makes zero mention of the crippling sanctions and economic sabotage of their own, the British, and other governments in this collapse.

It's still a toss-up trying to predict what's going to happen, however.

[ 06 April 2008: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]

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Meanwhile, an ominous dance began between Tsvangirai and the forces of imperialism. According to a Reuters report today, the MDC would gain access to US$2 billion per year in 'aid and development' – which normally is top-heavy with foreign debt and chock-full of conditions. Amongst these, most likely, are dramatic cuts to the civil services, so that the Zimbabwe central bank stops printing so much money, fuelling inflation. But the downside is the potential deepening of the country's economic crisis in the short term, as effective demand falls while more luxury goods become available thanks to foreign exchange inflows.

The key players are the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, European Union and the United Nations. No doubt Bush's White House is also involved in negotiations, which, if Tsvangirai persuades Mugabe to depart, may even reach fruition next week at the IMF/Bank spring meetings in Washington.

Given that Tsvangirai has chosen advisors from the International Republican Institute and Cato Institute, such a process was anticipated. It simply means that the left-leaning civil society forces that backed Tsvangirai have a huge regroupment challenge. If after an April 21 victory, many progressive Zimbabwean organisations lose cadres into an expanded state, this may recall the liquidation of South Africa's Mass Democratic Movement into the African National Congress government.

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http://www.thestar.com/World/Columnist/article/410703

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By late yesterday, seven days after the balloting, no results had been released for the crucial presidential contest pitting Mugabe against the main opposition candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change.

Yesterday, police blocked MDC lawyers from entering Harare's high court to present a petition demanding the results be made public. Unofficial figures compiled by the MDC show Tsvangirai won the vote with slightly more than half the ballots cast, but Mugabe and the ruling party are preparing to contest a two-man runoff many observers fear could involve violence and other forms of intimidation.

For foreigners here, the intimidation has already begun.

Late Thursday, some 40 armed Zimbabwean police surrounded the York Lodge, a small Harare hostelry where a number of foreign journalists and pro-democracy activists were staying. At least four people were seized, including a reporter for The New York Times, a British reporter and two others.

Also Thursday, Dileepan Sivapathasundaram, an official of a Washington-based pro-democracy group, the National Democratic Institute, was arrested at the airport while trying to leave the country.

He was released late Friday but taken back into custody yesterday.

"Zimbabwe is a series of veneers," said the Canadian activist as his vehicle carried him through a sparsely inhabited terrain ornamented by balancing rocks and small hills known as kopjes. "You have the veneer of freedom of choice, the veneer of media freedom."

And then you have the government cracking down on anyone or anything that stands in its way

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and...

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In more normal circumstances, he said, the opposition would have triumphed handily at the polls, but circumstances are far from normal in Zimbabwe.

"It's hard to organize when the government raids your offices, seizes your computers, downloads the hard drives and beats your members," he said.

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7333755.stm

That would just be too easy an explanation for why ZANU is demanding a recount. We have to find some other outlandish reason to fit our conspiracy theories.

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
BTW, what kind of "dictator" holds elections in which people are allowed to vote for opposition candidates?

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The kind that is able to:

a) Stuff ballot boxes
b) Make valid ballots disappear
c) Both a) and b)

[ 06 April 2008: Message edited by: Stephen Gordon ]

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
I wonder if any heads will roll ...

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Originally posted by Mercy:
The Zimbabwe Election Support Network - a US-funded "civil society" group - says that Tsvanagarai got 49 per cent to Mugabe's 41 per cent. These stats have been cited excitedly from a number of sources as proof that Mugabe lost. I don't think these same people can argue now that there shouldn't be a run-off (no one got 50 per cent of the vote) or that Mugabe has no support and should quit (even civil society groups who oppose him concede that he recieved 2 out of 5 votes).

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Originally posted by Ken Burch:
The weirdest development in this is that, now, Zanu-PF is demanding a recount. That would be a recount of the votes THEY THEMSELVES counted.

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Maybe that's a naive conclusion, but otherwise I can't figure it out.

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
Of course, it's completely out of the question that the electoral commission might actually have tried to do a competent job and tried to count the votes accurately!

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Originally posted by Stephen Gordon:
Ah. Diverting attention elsewhere. Always a convenient way of avoiding discussion of the topic at hand.

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I know it's a common metaphor and i don't think you meant it to be inflammatory but using it given the situation being discussed, where heads may very well roll this rhetoric seems unnecessary.

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In other words, you wouldn't put it past Mugabe that he might actually decapitate people who don't do his bidding?

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afrol news: A High Court judge on Monday maintained that his court has the jurisdiction to preside over a petition filed by the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) demanding the immediate release of Zimbabwe's recent election results from an official source.

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Former Assistant Secretary of State on African Affairs, Chester Crocker in a testimony to the US Senate:

"To separate the Zimbabwean people from ZANU-PF we are going to have to make their economy scream, and I hope you senators have the stomach for what you have to do." [Democracy Now!, April 1st, 2005]

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Didn't Henry Kissinger say exactly the same thing in regard to overthrowing the Salvador Allende government in Chile in 1973? Yup.

[ 07 April 2008: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]

ETA: Crocker only mentioned ZANU-PF in fact, and didn't mention Mugabe at all in the quote. That suggests that it is the policy of ZANU (read: land reform) that the Former Assistant Secretary of State on African Affairs mainly objects to, and not simply Mugabe.

I would expect therefore that, until the land reform is reversed, and ruinous privatization carried out on the state sector, the Merricans will not lift their "Zimbabwe Democracy Act" regardless if the MDC candidate wins or not. Not that the barking dogs of imperialism, either here on babble or elsewhere, could give a shit.

[ 07 April 2008: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]

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Not that the barking dogs of imperialism, either here on babble or elsewhere, could give a shit.

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Ha ha! I think "barking dogs of imperialism" is an update on "running dogs of imperialism", which was the standard slander the Maoists used to use.

But your slander is even BETTER! I mean, arguments against Mugabe's dictatorship become "barking"! and of course "imperialism" means anything disliked by the Communist Party, whether or not it is appreciated or agreed to by the people of the country involved.

So, I'll go with the majority of Zimbabweans, because I can understand why the latest failed octogenarian dictator doesn't appeal to them.

Awoooooooooooooooo!

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Originally posted by jeff house:
So, I'll go with the majority of Zimbabweans, because I can understand why the latest failed octogenarian dictator doesn't appeal to them

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The Sunday Times has learnt the inside story of what happened last Sunday, the day after the poll. By Sunday afternoon the theoretically independent Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, the body under Justice George Chiurshe which is charged with conducting the elections, communicated its initial estimates of the result to the Zanu-PF politburo: Tsvangirai 58%, Robert Mugabe 27% and Makoni 15%. These estimates were based on too narrow an urban sample and were too favourable to Tsvangirai and his MDC, but the message was clear: Mugabe had lost. The politburo, particularly Mugabe himself, hit the roof.

According to an account sourced to a commission official, Mugabe then ordered it to declare him elected with 53%. He was angry at Makoni’s “treachery” and demanded that his vote be reduced to 5%.

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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article3689991.ece

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Times: Thus, while Mugabe has been widely blamed for not declaring the results more quickly, it is the opposition that has made counting such a slow process in its determination to prevent cheating.

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Both sides are accusing each other of cheating in one way or another. The MDC has gone to court to demand the official results be made public while simultaneously taking steps that slow down the reporting process. Their supporters have participated in victory celebrations when the final results are not even in yet. Mugabe, OTOH, has clearly been floored by the Parliamentary losses and is looking for any excuse to crack down on the opposition. Mugabe will battle all the way and is unlikely to give up without a fight.

It's a powder keg into which the US and Britain have also stoked to maximum pressure and explosiveness.

If the MDC is able to maintain the publicity of the results, poll by poll, then eventually they will get the first round results made public and a possible second round chance if necessary. There are few neutrals available; Mugabe already burned his bridges with Mandela, and others. Furthermore ZANU doesn't trust the MDC leader who has no anti-apartheid credentials to speak of and Mugabe has himself lost urban support and will inevitably lose votes over the economic situation, allegations of thuggery, etc..

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Pasirayi attended the meeting and told Newsreel that the consensus was that in the event of a run-off all democratic forces should rally around Tsvangirai. Pasirayi however said the MDC should abandon the legal route and mobilize its structures for civil disobedience to resist Mugabe's continued rule. He said the party had tried the democratic route many times and this was not yielding any results.

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The High Court has postponed its decision on the MDCs action to force the ZEC to immediately release the Presidential results until tomorrow.

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Originally posted by N.Beltov:
US partisans, Voice of America propagandists, and World Bank officials were present at a conference in the US in which academic Philip Pasirayi openly advocated civil disobedience rather than participation in a second round of voting.

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A most delightful piece of framing.

"were present"

A: Mockery.

B: Sharply-worded contempt.

A: Mockery.

B: Sharply-worded contempt.

C: patient explanation of US imperialism and why it does what it does.

I like C: best of all, because I like it when people decide things for themselves. And that's why I also want Zimbabweans and not the officials of the World Bank, or the VOA, or the US State Department, or any other outsiders, to decide this election and the strategy of the MDC.

[ 07 April 2008: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]

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Thabo Mbeki, South Africa’s president, took a hand - he was continuously on the phone from Pretoria and had his emissaries in Harare. Mbeki’s overweening interest is to maintain Zanu-PF in power as a sister liberation movement of his own African National Congress. He fears a possible domino effect throughout southern Africa if a movement that had wrested power from the whites in a liberation war is seen to fail and perhaps then fall to bits...

Out of Mbeki’s discussions came the notion that the results should be “adjusted” so that Tsvangirai was brought back under the 50% mark, perhaps to 47%-49%, while Mugabe could get 41% and Makoni 10%-12%.

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However, there are some African news sources that are worth checking out. For example:

afrol news.

New African.

All Africa on Zimbabwe.

This is Zimbabwe.

[ 07 April 2008: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]

Here are a few more Zimbabwe based sources:

Sokwanele election 2008 site

Online community of Zimbabwe activists

Comrade Fatso's blog

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Originally posted by John K:
Here are a few more Zimbabwe based sources:

Sokwanele election 2008 site

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Canadian Stephen Gowans says Sokwanele and Zvakwana are funded surreptitiously by CIA groups through USAID, NED, "Optor" etc.

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While the original, Otpor, was largely a youth-oriented anarchist-leaning movement, at least one member of Sokwanele is “A conservative white businessman expressing a passion for freedom, tradition, polite manners and the British Royals."

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Gowans: The US Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act, signed into law by US President George W. Bush in December 2001, empowers the president under the US Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 to “support democratic institutions, the free press and independent media” in Zimbabwe.

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What Gowans is saying is that the US government is financing NGOs and other organizations in Zimbabwe to effect the declared goal of regime change in Zimbabwe. His evidence in unimpeachable and very extensive.

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John K: I prefer to get my information from Zimbabwean sources rather than Stephen Gowans who is not an authority on Zimbabwe or anything else for that matter.

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Originally posted by John K:
From the comfort of his armchair, Gowans can be relied upon to defend any despot or regime -

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It is perfectly possible to hold both views.

In fact, if Tsvangerai does come to power and acceded to IMF demands, it will once again largely be because Mugabe wasn't brought down by his party and replaced by a humane, democratic leader. It never had to be Mugabe or the deluge. In fact, it is clearly arguable that Mugabe will be personally responsible if Tsvangerai gets in and takes the course some people here have warned about, a course I also oppose.

This would be a good moment for Hugo Chavez to step in and help Tsvangerai establish a democratic socialist Zimbabwe. It would cement Chavez' world-historical reputation and deal a bitter blow to the U.S.

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what Zanu-PF should have done was to give the MDC an ultimatum: Either condemn the sanctions or we postpone the elections till the sanctions are neutralised.

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As a result of not doing this, the sanctions have done their work, as planned:

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Get it from me, this election was not free and fair as the MDC had a distinct advantage, a vantage proffered by the over 400 British companies that made sure the shelves whistled in emptiness till election day; the MDC's Western handlers who ensured that the sanctions remained in place despite sustained criticism from progressive bodies like NAM, Comesa, and Sadc; and, of course, a captive civil service that in some places played spoiler by ensuring that food relief did not reach the rural areas in time so that for the first time in 10 years, the rural populace was forced to cast protest votes against Zanu-PF as if it holds the keys to the heavens.

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As for this ...

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Ken B: it is clearly arguable that Mugabe will be personally responsible if Tsvangerai gets in and takes the course some people here have warned about ...

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Mugabe is responsible for a great deal including, according to many, the horrific atrocities that have been nicknamed Gukurahundi. However, making Mugabe responsible for the conduct of his political foe only means that you think Mugabe should stop resisting Western diktat. Given that Mugabe began his electoral career with a resounding and astounding victory in 1980, that's not going to happen.

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Posted by N. Beltov: This, of course, begs the question: which Zimbabwean source? Only the US funded ones?

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Zimbabwean police have also been accused of assaulting "more than 80 opposition activists in the western provinces of Manicaland and Matabeleland."

Police assault Zim activists

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Zuma is likely to take a more tough line on Robert Mugabe, although he has to walk a delicate balance so as to not upstage President Mbeki's efforts. But given the tone of the NEC discussions, Zuma could well rebuke Mugabe publicly, which will be a massive departure from our previous stance," a senior ANC NEC member said.

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Furthermore,

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Business Day understands that the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) will meet the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) today. The meeting is at the request of the ZCTU. Tsvangirai is a former leader of the ZCTU and enjoys warm relations with COSATU.

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Provincial war veterans' chairman Cde Isaiah Muzenda yesterday said they would take strong action against unrepentant white farmers who were preparing to repossess their previous properties in anticipation of an MDC victory in the presidential poll.

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So the economic interests, outside of the political opponents to Mugabe, are rearing their heads. If the MDC wins then this will likely increase.

Safeguard land says President.

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Originally posted by Fidel:
I think it's time rich whites just got the hell out of Zimbabwe or stop trying to re-establish colonial rule. They don't really believe blacks are inferior, but they do believe in their own cause to be on top. And they'll instigate another damned civil war sooner that go quietly.

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But, for most of them, it probably would be easier to have Jeeves pack up the steamer trunks and book their passage back to the Home Counties.

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
Wasn't it nice of Pig Mugabe to squander 100s of millions of dollars trying to colonize Congo while his own people starved.

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He wasn't considered a pig for ten years while appeasing the IMF and NeoLiberal banksters while Zims lived in abject poverty.

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Originally posted by John K:
No doubt. There's plenty of blame to go round for the tragedy that befell the Congo and its people. Some of this blame is borne by other African states and some by external forces outside the continent. But Mugabe also has blood on his hands.

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That's awfully good of you to, once again, come to the defence of the indefensible vicious empire. But it's not suprising, John K. What's five million human beings when so much is at stake with diamonds and gold and a number of minerals you've never heard of before.

The War that did not make the Headlines:Over Five Million Dead in Congo?

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The International Rescue Committee in late January 2008 released a new report on the mortality in the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo. The report caught the eye of some news agencies, who quickly whipped up trite little articles as supposed expressions of horror. Over and over it has been declared “the world’s forgotten crises.” There are reasons why Darfur is in the crises of the day, the poster crises, and why Congo is hardly mentioned.

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Comparing public figures to barnyard animals is Stockholm's way of enlightening the rest of us, not nearly as wise as he is, as to who is "good" and who is "bad". It saves us the effort of trying to understand the situation, the balance of forces, the likely course of events, the role of outside players, or of having to provide links and sources to substantiate our claims, etc., etc.

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Originally posted by Stockholm:

I wonder how many people Mugabe has killed with his bare hands? Probably hundreds. How else do you suppose he entertains himself?

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Originally posted by N.Beltov:
Moderator alert of potential libel from Stockholm.

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Maybe you're remembering Idi "the strangler" Amin who gained the respect of his British backers for running Kenya's concentration camps for them in the 1950's.

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I'm surprised your saying anything negative about Amin. I thought that he would be a hero to the "viva la revolucion" crowd since he did exactly what so many of you keep demanding that Mugabe and the leaders of South Africa do - he confiscated all property belonging to whites and Asians and expelled them from Uganda with nothing but the shirts on their backs. Am I mistaken or is this not exactly what some of you keep saying Mugabe should have done 25 years ago???

PS: If Robert Mugabe personally launches a lawsuit against rabble.ca because people here have described him as a pig and a murderer - I will happily pay every penny of the court costs. Who wants to pay the costs if Bush sues rabble for libel because some posters have called him a war criminal???

Who will pay if the estates of Adolf Hitler, Mao Tse Tung and Josef Stalin decide to sue rabble for the fact that these peoples reputations have been bsmirched - when they have been referred to as murderers??

[ 09 April 2008: Message edited by: Stockholm ]

[ 09 April 2008: Message edited by: Stockholm ]

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Originally posted by NP:

A defence to libel is the truth - has Mugabe compared members of the LGBT community to animals? Or worse?

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Africa is missing millions of good people and would-be nationalist leaders over the course of a cold war and damage done by western-backed fascist regimes in Zimbabwe and South Afreeka.

It's time for the west to realize that NeoLiberal economic reforms aren't working in Africa as much as they didn't work in Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Russia, and now most of Africa where the invisible fist and export of terrorism from the west is required to prop an economic ideology that is already proven to be incompatible with democracy and basic human rights.

A much more credible report on the Congolese tragedy was done by Amnesty International. A short excerpt:

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It is estimated that more than three quarters of the killings in the DRC over the last four years have taken place in eastern DRC and about 90 per cent of the DRC’s internally displaced population have fled violence in that region. However, in eastern DRC, the neighbouring states of Rwanda and Uganda, in alliance with Congolese armed political groups have systematically plundered the region on a vast scale, justifying their military intervention and control of the area by the threat to their own security from the activities of Rwandese and Ugandan insurgent groups(5) operating from within the DRC. The ambition of all theses combatant forces to exploit eastern DRC’s mineral and economic wealth has been the biggest single factor in the continuing violence. The major beneficiaries have been senior members of the Ugandan and Rwandese armed forces, foreign businesses and leaders of armed political groups. Recent troop withdrawals have not affected continuing control of the exploitation by Rwanda and Uganda. These economic interests have led to the emergence of a pattern of violence by all forces in the region that is aimed primarily at Congolese civilian communities and is predatory in character.

Yet, despite the scale of the still unfolding tragedy, the human rights crisis has been under-reported and misunderstood, allowing the major protagonists to escape scrutiny. The Kinshasa government has allowed the armed forces of Zimbabwe to exploit the DRC’s diamond fields and commit human rights violations in return for their military support. In eastern DRC, the entrenched pattern of impunity has perpetuated the violence and lawlessness of armed forces in the region.

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Originally posted by John K:

A much more credible report on the Congolese tragedy was done by Amnesty International. A short excerpt:

Full Amnesty Report

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The ambition of all theses combatant forces to exploit eastern DRC’s mineral and economic wealth has been the biggest single factor in the continuing violence. The major beneficiaries have been senior members of the Ugandan and Rwandese armed forces, foreign businesses and leaders of armed political groups.

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Yes, Rwanda and Uganda are U.S. proxies. We know that from independent American and Canadian research reports and essays contributed to GlobalResearch.ca, a web site based out of Ottawa, Ontario.

The CIA murdered Patrice Lumumba in 1960, the Congo's first and last democratically-elected prime minister in order to install Mobutu Sese Seko, a real "I, me, and mine" anticommunist stooge of the west. And then in the last decade:

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...the U.S.-backed overthrow of Zaire and coup d’etat against Mobutu Sese Seko, 1996-1998. The IRC excludes this period for multiple reasons. (Requests to the IRC for comment were not answered.)

One of the obvious reasons is that the Pentagon was directly involved, 1996-1998, along with the private U.S. military companies Military Professional Resources Incorporated, and Kellogg, Brown and Root (Halliburton). Just as happened with the massive bloodletting in Rwanda, and premised of course from the start on the examples of selective justice at the Nazi Nuremburg trials, the international system manipulates statistics, dates, and timeframes partly to shield those agents who might otherwise be subject to some kind of future reckoning, and partly to serve the falsification of history and fabricate a false consciousness.

The IRC excludes the period 1996-1997 to shield the governments of now military President Paul Kagame, in Rwanda, and Yoweri Museveni, in Uganda, and their inner circles and extended networks of syndicated, organized crime.

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Originally posted by Stockholm:

I'm surprised your saying anything negative about Amin. I thought that he would be a hero to the "viva la revolucion" crowd since he did exactly what so many of you keep demanding that Mugabe and the leaders of South Africa do -

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... and he did that as well as slaughtering a quarter million Ugandans with military aid and training from the U.S., too. Oh yes!

And Paul Kagame was another graduate of the world's foremost school for export of torture and terror. Eleven of twelve major wars in Africa. Who has the most blood on their hands in Africa? Take a wild guess.

Zambian President gets involved

Without a Parliamentary majority, land reform of any kind is probably out of the question as, even if Mugabe wins, which is looking more and more unlikely, he can't pass a budget without support from the MDC. Perhaps the best that can be hoped for is that Mugabe either loses or steps aside, but manages somehow to negotiate a deal where the public institutions are saved from being completely eviscerated by the Bretton Woods diktat. If Mugabe wins or somehow manages to hang onto power by violence, then his external enemies will "make the economy scream" even more than it is already.

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
you're funny

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Perhaps the best that can be hoped for is that Mugabe either loses or steps aside, but manages somehow to negotiate a deal where the public institutions are saved from being completely eviscerated by the Bretton Woods diktat.

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Maybe if you actually read the news instead of regurgitating whatever you would have discovered that.

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Mercy: ... was Mugabe wrong to let Ian Smith live out his life in peace? He earned a lot of praise for that.

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This is interesting in that it's a break from their previous tactic. Moreover, it flies in the face of the facts. Even the MDC-friendly Zimbabwe Election Support Network didn't give Tsvangirai over 50 per cent.

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Originally posted by N.Beltov:
Actually, the VOA propagandist addressed the meeting, as did the former World Bank official. The transition to obedience to Bretton Woods institutions in Zimbabwe is being well orchestrated and planned outside Zimbabwe. No doubt such framing is also "delightful" ... especially for supporters of neo-liberalism everywhere.

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I've noticed that people's vigilance on international justice increases as skin hue darkens. Tell me I'm wrong.

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I apologize. Your vigilance increases depending on which side the Americans are on? What's the criteria here?

Cueball, I think the correlation is that "international law" is only enforced against the powerless - which are usually African countries though, as Stockholm proudly notes, Eastern Europe sometimes gets it. Charles Taylor is put on trial. Henryt Kissinger isn't.

Interestingly, no tribunal for Saddam Hussein.

[ 10 April 2008: Message edited by: Mercy ]

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Originally posted by Cueball:
This is an intersting question actually. What it the percentage of people being tried at the Hague who are not white? ...
It is true we tend only to enforce in non-white environments.

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The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) has disbanded the National Command Centre and the chief elections officer has told representatives of opposition Presidential candidates that the verification process was now being done at a secret location by people he refused to disclose.

The latest antics by ZEC have proved beyond reasonable doubt that the government-appointed body wants to rig the Presidential election, which has clearly been won by the MDC President, Morgan Tsvangirai.

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So the MDC is increasing the pressure as they are able. However, claims of victory and/or victory celebrations before it's confirmed is risky and, I think, illegal. It would be a bad strategy to increase civil disobedience when the police are just waiting for that. Tsvangirai should be saying things like

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Star article: Tsvangirai also made a possible overture toward ZANU-PF, telling South African radio he wanted a government that would "create space for everyone."

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and de-escalating calls for violence. If the ZEC doesn't release the results, or something like that, Tsvangirai can rely upon outside forces, already antagonistic to Mugabe for their own reasons, to apply pressure in a different manner.

MDC link

[ 10 April 2008: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]

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Originally posted by N.Beltov:
The MDC is actually referring to "President Tsvangirai" on its web site...

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Continue this thread HERE

[ 10 April 2008: Message edited by: M. Spector ]

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Originally posted by Cueball:
No no. Its interesting. In fact the Balkans are really the sole exception.

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