Saturday, May 3, 2008

For Zimbabwe, the Fight has only Begun


The official results are finally out. Mysteriously though the results make sure that nobody gets a majority in excess of 50% vote - in spite of earlier claims by MDC and several observers that Mr. Tsvangirai had won 50.3% of the total electorate. The official results (also confirmed by a few independent observations) claim that Mr Mugabe and Zanu PF, managed to make about 43.2% of the votes, and Morgan Tsavangirai and MDC will have only 47.9% of the share.
According to the law in Zimbabwe, if nobody gets a majority in excess of 50% of the vote, the situation will run into a "run off vote" in this case, between Mr. Mugabe and Mr. Tsvangirai. Which (according to Tsvangirai) is exactly what was desired by Robert Mugabe. The situation seems very similar to the last presidential elections in Zimbabwe.
Mr. Tsvangirai has been maintaining a stand that Robert Mugabe has scandalously tilted close to 120,000 votes to his side and that he would not participate in any kind of "Run Off" until more international independent observers are involved. Amid all the chaos and violence, out of fear for losing his life, Mr. Tsvangirai is outside Zimbabwe.
What was hoping to be a healthy change for the governance in Zimbabwe has turned into a nasty political war claiming innocent Zimbabwean lives (Read: Krishna Prashanth: The Zephyr turns into a Tornado and Krishna Prashanth: A Zephyr in Zimbabwe).
In his 28 year long term as the president of Zimbabwe, Mr Mugabe has denounced western media and their interference in Zimbabwe. The pictures of BBC reporters waiting in the Zimbabwe-South Africa border, to get a glimpse of some news from the inside the troubled nation, is something that we get to see everyday.
Looks like for Zimbabwe, the fight has only begun.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

It is very unfortunate that the fight is not yet over for the people of Zimbabwe.

With the rate of inflation at 165,000%, unemployment at 80% and scarcity of basic food stuffs, their little hope of a change in the Govt to improve their way of life, seems to be shattered today.

Many countries including Canada, Washington, Britain and the US feel that there has been a clear manipulation of the election results. The South African president Thabo Mbeki, who has been trying to reduce the political and economical tension in Zimbabwe has assured that he would send a mission to probe the violence there.

Tsvangiri and his party the MDC have alleged that this has not been a fair election and that they would not participate in the second round, if any. The sad fact remains that if Tsvangiri does not participate in a second round, Mugabe will be declared as the winner.

I feel that the entire world should rise up against the injustice in Zimbabwe, not only for the sake of the people of Zimbabwe, but mankind as a whole.