Fortunately the MDC has concretely and unassailably won their Parliamentary seats, and will only need to find 30 ruling party Members of Parliament to side with them in order to impeach Mugabe. This should not be too difficult, as the example of Simba Makoni, who broke with Zanu-PF to run against Mugabe and actually got around 6% of the vote, shows that ruling party members are not happy either. In addition, Mugabe will have to pass all laws and decrees with the Parliament's approval, and the MDC has the Parliamentary majority, so apparently his power has been broken. The Zimbabwe Teachers Union has threatened to go on strike if its members continue to be harassed by those loyal to Zanu-PF. If enough unions go on strike, and people continue to make known their views in this way, just to retain basic functions in the country Mugabe will have to make concessions. So even if the MDC refuses to take part in the run-off necessitated by the less-than-50% margin of victory, and thereby hands the election to Mugabe by default, or even if the intimidation tactics of Zanu-PF supporters work and Tsvangirai does not win in the run-off, the people of Zimbabwe have made their voices heard. Democracy is not an easy process, and choosing the slow and cautious way is difficult when one faces hardship, deprivation, injury, and even death. But it can work, and hopefully for Zimbabwe it will work.
Even more significant both for this situation and overall, however, is a new lawsuit being put together. The East African Law Society and the Southern Africa Development Committee are seeking an indictment against China in the International Criminal Court over the An Yue Jiang fiasco. You will all recall the Chinese ship loaded with arms ordered by Mugabe’s government in the midst of its disputed election which attempted to dock in South Africa and was turned away by horrified dock workers. The dock workers Union quickly rallied behind them, and a sort of ethical coup resulted, with all dock workers unions in the African coastal countries rallying to protect the voters of Zimbabwe from this obvious intended violence. The Chinese government was forced to recall the ship amid international embarrassment, and now they are being brought to court to account for their willingness to send arms into such a troubled country. One can only hope that this will be the beginning of accounting for this world power as to why they are so unethically willing to support violent oppressive governments.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7383583.stmhttp://allafrica.com/stories/200805050032.html?page=2
http://allafrica.com/stories/200805050238.html
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