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Tsvangirai Gives Up Amid Mugabe’s Reign of Violence |
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News from earlier today:
Only five days before Zimbabwe’s presidential runoff election, the opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai announced Sunday that he was pulling out of the race because armed forces backing President Robert Mugabe have made it clear that anyone who votes for Mr. Tsvangirai faces a real possibility of being killed.
At a news conference, Mr. Tsvangirai, who leads the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, or M.D.C., said he was unwilling to ask the party’s supporters to go to the polls on Friday “when that vote will cost them their lives.â€
Mr. Tsvangirai’s decision came on a day when governing party youth militia armed with iron bars, sticks and other weapons beat his supporters as they sought to attend a rally for him in Harare.
There is little doubt that Mugabe never had any intention of letting this election go forward fairly, and even less intention of relinquishing power after 28 years as president. Mugabe lost the March election by his government’s own admission, and yet he determined a run-off was necessary. During the lengthy interim his party wreaked havoc on the people of Zimbabwe, systematically beating, torturing, and slaughtering those who openly supported Tsvangirai, burning homes and shops in areas that voted for him, and (according to the MDC) making plans for widespread vote-rigging; all in an effort to intimidate and “re-educate” those stupid enough to consider voting for the opposition again in the run-off.
Apparently, all of these efforts paid off, as today Tsvangirai conceded there is no point in going forward with this “violent, illegitimate, sham of an election process.”
Not to be a cynic, but I expect we’ll see a tide of statements from international “leaders” voicing their “regret” over this decision — and stark reference to their collective refusal to oversee a free and fair election in Zimbabwe this week.
