Carla Neal/May 2 2:30pm/Democracy
In today’s news, leaders in Zimbabwe have announced that there will be a run-off election because Tsvangirai did not win the fifty percent of votes that was needed even though he did get more votes than Mugabe’s party. An associate from the Zimbabwe Coalition in Washington claims that this is not surprising considering that the elections were four weeks ago and the results have still not been made public, giving the reigning power plenty of time to tamper with the elections. He also claims that statistically there is a very good possibility that Tsvangirai did win the percentage needed but that the current leaders, wanting to hold on to their positions, were using the lower statistics to demand a run-off. He also believes that this gave Mugabe followers enough time to instill fear and violence in the opposing supporters so that they will not vote in the run-off election.
This is very sad because these people are having their democratic and basic human rights tampered with. I have been following this story hoping that this mess would pan out with dignity and in all fairness but now it looks like Mugabe’s group may have found ways/loop holes to stay in position till the next election. Unfortunately I don’t think those loop holes were illegal; therefore, if he ends up winning he cannot be disputed by anyone.
http://voanews.com/english/Africa/2008-05-02-voa35.cfm
1 comment:
I agree, this is horrible, but it isn't anything new. I hope that Zimbabwe can break free from corruption, but it is definitely an uphill battle.
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