flickering pictures

In spite of official recognition of Mugabe’s loss in the parliamentary vote, nearly two weeks later the government is still refusing to release the results of the all-important presidential election, even though independent observers and early official vote counts show the MDC’s Morgan Tsvangirai as the clear winner. Early fears were that Mugabe’s party, the ZANU-PF, was stalling to buy time for a behind-the-scenes ballot-stuffing campaign, but now Zimbabweans are fearing something much worse.

From the Globe and Mail:

“The circumstances have changed, ZANU-PF has threatened, has deployed militias, has deployed war veterans,” Mr. Tsvangirai said, adding Mugabe was “preparing a war on the people.”

“It is unfair … for President Mugabe to even hint at a runoff. Violence will be the new weapon to reverse the people’s will. We won this election without the need for a runoff,” said Mr. Tsvangirai, who called Mr. Mugabe a lame duck president and demanded that he concede.

From The Times:

Unwilling to allow Mr Mugabe to slope off into retirement, those supporting him -– including the military –- have taken the reigns, unleashing an orchestrated campaign of terror against opposition activists, election observes an ordinary voters in an attempt to secure Mr Mugabe victory in a second-round poll.

White-owned farms were the first targets of the violence that insiders say is being co-ordinated by 200 handpicked military and intelligence officers loyal to the President.

Police have also arrested Mr Tsvangirai’s lawyer. Innocent Chagonda, who successfully defended Mr Tsvangirai from treason charges in 2004, was seized on charges related to a helicopter hired for the MDC.

He had apparently demanded that police release the aircraft, which had been confiscated, when he was arrested for “interfering with police work”, the opposition said.

Adding to the ominousness, Al-Jazeera says “Mugabe, who has ruled the former British colony since independence in 1980, said before the election that his old rival Tsvangirai would never rule the country in his lifetime.”

With a brutal despot like Mugabe in charge — one who compares himself to Hitler and shows no qualms about killing or torture — the worries about politically-motivated Rwanda-style massacres are genuine and well-founded. Watch for this to get much, much worse before it gets any better.

Silly me, I checked CNN for this story first. There was no mention of any of this among its top stories, which did however include “Nude photo of French first lady sells for $91K” and “Ferguson beats Conan in ratings for 1st time.” Okay, I’ll give them the first one.

Photo from Nadir.ord.

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