Latest in the Zimbabwe election circus! Mugabe down but not out. We have been waiting for the results of the presidential election for a month now. The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission did not gives us the results of the elections, even the courts of law refused to force the commission to give us the results. So, is it just by coincedence that the government has decided to leak the results of the presidential election a day before the begining of the verification process?
According to reuters news agency, a senior government official has said that Morgan Tsvangirai won the presidential election in Zimbabwe with 47 percent of the total vote against Robert Mugabe’s 43 percent. Crucially that leaves Tsvangirai short of the majority needed to avoid an election run-off against Mugabe. But can Zimbabwe afford another election?
This is probably nothing new. We have always known that Tsvangirai won the presidential election. The results have been in the public domain ever since they were posted at different polling stations after the elections held in Zimbabwe on 29 March.
Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC have always said that he won the election, but if the leaked results are a true reflection of what is to come. Then we are set for another round of elections. But can we afford the election re-run? Probably not. Ever since Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF lost it’s majority in parliament, and they laso realised he had lost to Tsvangirai in the presidential vote. There has been reported cases of violance against opposition supporters. The opposition MDC have already said that 20 of their members have been killed by pro-government militias.
Zimbabwe can also not afford the financial costs of the election run-off. Given the state of our economy, this will probably destroy whatever is left of the economy already in meltdown. So if we can not afford the re-run, then what’s the way forward? Probably to let the winner of the last election be the new leader of the country.
So what was the reason behind the election results delay? The only logical reason is because Mugabe lost the presidential election. The delay was probably meant to play around with figures thus resulting in the impending election re-run.
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- Zimbabwe Election 2008 – Is this the most important election in Zimbabwe in recent years?
- Zimbabwe Elections 2008 – Military and the election results