Mugabe Not Giving In Peacefully

Carla Neal/Apr. 25 1:30pm/Democracy

It has been four weeks since the Zimbabwe elections and the voting ballots have yet to be counted; however, this week, the opposition party’s HQs were raided by police and 100 of opposition supporters and workers were arrested in the raid. This comes after the opposition and the US declared that Tsvangirai, leader of the MDC party, the opposing party to Mugabe, was the new president. The ruling party claims that these raids were part of investigation into some post election violence caused by the two opposing parties. The two opposing parties claim that these raids were purely political, a search for anything to arrest the main actors in these parties and tie them to wrong “doings” in order to keep the current president in office. Some of the items absconded during the raid were material on vote counting, official documents, computers, and other equipment. Also, some of those arrested in the raids were refugees who had been assaulted as a result of their opposition. It just so happens that this week, the US SoS of African affairs, is scheduled to talk to some major actors in Africa with hope that they will be able to influence Mugabe for the better.

This type of thing is only proving the UN correct that Mugabe is undemocratic even through he insist that he is running a democracy in a democratic way and it also gives the UN legitimacy to verbally attack the leader and try to see that the human rights of it’s people are met. While we still don’t know the results of the elections, it is quite obvious that the ruling leader feels very threatened and that he is not going to give up his power peacefully or fairly.