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Evening Thread: Zimbabwe Update |
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The situation in Zimbabwe continues to deteriorate, though international condemnation is growing. Yesterday Jendayi Frazer, the top US envoy to Zimbabwe, said that opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was the “clear winner of last month’s presidential elections.
“Morgan Tsvangirai won and perhaps outright, at which point you don’t need a government of national unity. You have to accept the result.”
But she said that any results released would not have any credibility and added that: “There may need to be a political solution, a negotiated solution.”
Not only the presidential results are in doubt, but parliamentary results as well. After initial tallies declared that the opposition had won the majority of seats, the government announced a “recount.” The first results of that recount, released Wednesday, allowed everyone to breathe a sigh of relief as winners and losers of two seats remained unchanged, and seven more have been recounted without change since then. But fears still run high that tampering lies ahead. The Election Commission is also claiming that they can’t release presidential results until the recounts are complete, providing yet another pretext for their long foot-dragging charade.
Meanwhile, Mugabe is cracking down. Earlier today his men raided the opposition’s offices in Harare and took dozens of people into captivity. African leaders and the international community have bravely intervened to block shipments of weapons coming from China to Zimbabwe, but that won’t necessarily halt the brutality that Mugabe is prepared to unleash. As the situation continues to trend toward the grim, I’m just hoping someone in Mugabe’s inner circle will convince him that all this simply isn’t worth it. Slim chance I know, and what a shame. Everyone who was watching saw this coming from a mile away.
