Mugabe Set to Claim Victory
The folks at The Institute for War and Peace Reporting now claim.....
Quote:
Official sources say he will claim to have won presidential poll despite clearly losing to Tsvangirai.
By Joseph Sithole in Harare (AR No. 163, 31-Mar-08)
In what can best be described as a shock result, President Robert Mugabe and his ruling ZANU-PF party are about to announce victory for Mugabe in the parliamentary and presidential elections, according to unofficial results leaked from the ZANU-PF and Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, ZEC, command centres.
But sources within the ZEC centre - newly christened the National Collation Centre - say Mugabe clearly lost the election to his opposition rival Morgan Tsvangirai, polling only 20 per cent of the vote.
...But commentators say it would be something of a miracle if Mugabe and his party had secured the victory, given more than 85 per cent unemployment, serious food shortages and a collapsed health delivery system.
Some of the ruling party’s heavyweights that have fallen include Minister of Women Affairs Oppah Muchunguri, Agriculture Minister Joseph Made, Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Patrick Chinamasa, Minister of Energy and Power Development Mike Nyambuya, and Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu.
There are already reports coming from the United States saying sanctions, currently targeted at Mugabe and his close associates, would be intensified if the ballot were not free and fair. The same is likely to come from Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other western countries.
But what is more worrying now is how Zimbabweans are going to receive the result, especially after the MDC has been saying it “has won this election beyond any reasonable doubt”.
Waiting to crush the people?
On a BBC Radio 4 interview, Martin Rupiah, ex-Zimbabwe Army colonel, now living in South Africa, commented that the slow release of the results was designed to bring out protestors out onto the street, where the loyal security forces, or certain parts of them, would crush them.
davidbfpo
calls on Zimbabwe to release election results quickly
01 Apr 2008 | The foreign ministers of seven EU member states, including the Netherlands, have called upon the Zimbabwean Electoral Commission to swiftly announce the results of the presidential election.
Quote:
Foreign minister Maxime Verhagen and his counterparts from the UK, Italy, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain expressed their concerns at an informal meeting convened by French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner in Paris on Monday.
1 Attachment(s)
Pay the Bearer on Demand Ten Million Dollars
From CONDÉ NAST
As Americans worry about the rate of inflation exceeding 4 percent, we should consider Zimbabwe, where the inflation rate broke the shocking 100,000 percent mark and the country released a 10 million-dollar note (now valued below $4 on the black market). But Zimbabwe's currency is hardly the only one inflated beyond reason. —George Quraishi
Best before: "On or before 30 June 2008" :confused:
Other Shoe May Be Dropping
CNN is reporting that the GOZ raided opposition party headquarters as what may be part of a crackdown....
More as this develops
Tom
OK more information makes it look like the "raids" are targeting journalists so we shall see what happens.