elections

The Southern African Legal Assistance Network (SALAN) welcomes the stance taken by the Southern African Development Community (SADC)’s call for the postponement of the Zimbabwean Presidential run-off elections scheduled for Friday 27th June 2008, which have been characterized by widespread violence, forcing MDC Presidential candidate Morgan Tsvangirai to announce his withdrawal from the race.

The Southern African Legal Assistance Network (SALAN) welcomes the stance taken by the Southern African Development Community (SADC)’s call for the postponement of the Zimbabwean Presidential run-off elections scheduled for Friday 27th June 2008, which have been characterized by widespread violence, forcing MDC Presidential candidate Morgan Tsvangirai to announce his withdrawal from the race.

 "it probably would not have been free and fair"

I am becoming disillusioned with democracy. Elected leaders, all around the world, seem to be getting worse and worse. In London they've just elected Boris Johnson, a bigoted buffoon, as mayor. In Italy, Silvio Berlusconi was recently re-elected as prime minister. This is a man who is notoriously corrupt, and who in his previous terms in power ran the government like his private business empire.

I was quite disturbed to read two opinion pieces in the SA Sunday papers, on Zimbabwe, where the authors were basically defending Mugabe. The thing is, these writers have some valid points to make - but they go on to draw unjustifiable conclusions.

I was perhaps too sweeping when I said yesterday that it is not in the personality of Zimbabweans to take to the streets. Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) have made brave peaceful protests as have the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), lawyers and the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), Crisis in Zimbabwe etc. They have all been met with brutal attacks by police.

Zimbabweans spend all their time at the moment talking in open and helpless disbelief that the elections are being stolen from them.

I sit here at my desk at GALZ, on Wednesday 2nd April, refreshing the home page of www.Kubatana.net every few minutes hoping to see something more from the final results of the 2008 harmonised elections. I haven't been able to work for two days and I have never watched so much ZTV in my life, most of which has been jive dancing and dated documentaries. I saw one about saving a sick dolphin, another about the filming of a rare species of baboon and a beginners class for djembe drummers. I watched one on Zimbabwean sculpture three times - and I'd already seen it before!