Friday, May 9, 2008

How To Hold Power -- Delay the Runoff

The head of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission has reportedly said the run-off could be delayed by up to a year.

No date has been set for the second round between President Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai, which should be 21 days after the official results.

This should give Mugabe enough time to bully voters. The opposition party originally produced evidence that they had won the election outright, leading the government to delay release of the certified results and threated the opposition. Now it is too violent to hold elections -- army wearing militias forcing families from their homes -- without the delay the violence could impact turnout and help Mugabe.

Mugabe has taken a proud nation that exported food and transformed it into a starving nation with inflation that has at times been over 100,000 percent.
DKK
BBC

Update:

Zimbabwe's "war veterans" militia plan to intimidate voters by posing as police officers during the presidential run-off, a policeman has told the BBC.

He said they would be based inside polling stations during the vote, whose date has not yet been fixed.

BBC

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