Zimbabwe’s opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, announced yesterday that his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party is pulling out of the presidential run-off election, even though he won the main election held a few weeks ago. He says President Robert Mugabe’s widespread use of rape, torture, beatings and murder to intimidate opposition voters has made it impossible for a free election to be held, and from the looks of it, he’s right.
From the BBC:
We in the MDC have resolved that we will no longer participate in this violent, illegitimate sham of an election process.
The courageous people of Zimbabwe, and the people of the MDC, have done everything humanly and democratically possible to deliver a new Zimbabwe and a new government.
Conditions as of today do not permit the holding of a credible poll. Given the totality of these circumstances, we believe a credible election is impossible.
We in the MDC cannot ask [people] to cast their vote on the 27th when that vote would cost them their lives.
Fearing for his life, Tsvangirai has requested and received asylum at the Dutch embassy in Harare. His political retreat marks a huge victory for Mugabe and the end of a remarkable movement in Zimbabwe, which saw hundreds of thousands of opposition supporters risking their lives to put an end to Mugabe’s 28-year reign of terror.
The last straw for Tsvangirai was Mugabe’s public declaration that he would “go to war” to hold onto power, threatening extreme violence against anyone who tried to pry Zimbabwe’s presidency away. Tsvangirai knew all too well that the ensuing civil war would likely have been short, with all the guns on the same side.
The international community is doing its usual finger-wagging and tongue-flapping, and true to form isn’t going to do much else. Interestingly though, some of the loudest criticisms of Mugabe are now coming from African nations, which have generally been reluctant to publicly critique their neighbours. Levy Mwanawasa, Zambia’s president, announced that elections held in the current climate of fear and violence would “not only be undemocratic but will also bring embarrassment to the region and the entire continent of Africa,” and Marwick Khumalo, head of the Pan African Parliament Observer Mission, said “one party is not free to campaign; one party has no access to public or state media; one party is not allowed to travel the length and breadth of this country as it pleases. So it became clear to some of us that it’s becoming more and more a one-sided election.”
1 response so far ↓
1 PuterPrsn // Jun 24, 2008 at 8:09 am
If the US decided to “help out” and go in there to depose the dictator - which will take basically a war against his troops - we will be condemned at home by the “peace lovers” and around the world for “invading” a country. But if we don’t go in to help these people out, we’re being remiss in our duty as human beings.
Can’t win. Either way, we get stomped on, and generally by the same people. All the “finger-waving and tongue-flapping” that everyone seems to want regarding Iraq when they had basically the same problem plus backing international terrorists has come to condemnation is villified here as being of no use. Well, DUH! You can only fight bullies with a fist to the face. They don’t want to talk about it, and won’t see reason. They’re the “bad guys” - it’s what they do.
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