While the recently signed ZANU PF-MDC agreement has been advertised in many places as a sharing of power, a close examination of the document shows that it is a mere sham. The document itself is nothing like the rumors that were so skillfully circulated prior to its release. There are none of those highly publicized details about how Tsvangirai and MDC would be in charge of the police. The cold reality is that this agreement hardly chips at Mugabe’s established powers, but it goes on to grant him what he most needs at this moment: legality and a rescue form international condemnation.
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With Mugabe’s re-election being met with international rejection after he went it alone in the polls, he knows that he needs the MDC. He seems to perceive the growing need to pacify the growing regional and international concerns by entering into talks with the MDC. In the past he has used such talks to buy time, and he could pull the same stunt once again. However, the circumstances have changed now that the regional support he used to enjoy has shifted to sympathy for his opponents. Tsvangirai is currently riding on a crest of international sympathy for his cause and condemnation for Mugabe, as was the case soon after the first round of polling in March. Tsvangirai and his MDC seem to be of the idea that a transitional government mandated to create favorable conditions for the holding of a free and fair election. The Guardian has released a short film documenting the election fraud in Zimbabwe, which can be viewed here. But how to understand the film? “Makavhotera Papi?” “Where did you place your vote?” Those are the words Zimbabwean voters have heard over and over again from their Head of State and former hero, Robert Gabriel Mugabe, delivered via the lips of chain- and club-wielding militias in the dark of the night. Those are the words that have brought tears, heartbreak, and the chill of terror to many homes. And now, when it’s almost time to place yet another vote, with the question now being “What will the voters do this time?” right there in the middle of everything, the opposition contestant, Morgan Tsvangirai, has announced that he is pulling out of the election and has fled into the Dutch Embassy. To complicate matters even more, the Mugabe government has insisted that the elections will go on as planned, with Tsvangirai’s name on it. Zimbabwe’s March 29 elections were held in an atmosphere that everybody saw as impossible for the opposition. There was virtually no media freedom, no campaign time for the opposition, and so much violence that being merely associated with the opposition MDC could very well mean death, and the Zimbabwe electoral commission, run by the fanatical Mugabe loyalist, Tobaiwa Mudede, was handpicked by the ZANU PF administration and is heavily in favor of ZANU and Mugabe. In addition, it can easily be argued that much of the election was rigged long before the election itself took place. Election observers found that the numbers on the voter’s roll were far greater than the numbers of the voters on the ground. Many of the names were simply created to inflate the numbers in the constituencies that supported Mugabe, while another big number was comprised of the deceased. Plucky Zimbabwean humor suggested in the run up to the election that Mugabe had recruited the dead since the living had no more time for him. |
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