Wednesday, April 02, 2008

May you live in interesting times

Zimbabweans certainly are! After 28 years of Mugabeism, they seem tantalizingly close to getting a new president. However, the electoral commission still will not release any information about the presidential vote now 3 days after they were supposed to do so. The NY Times is running a story quoting a Zimbabwean newspaper saying that neither Mugabe nor his rival Tsvangirai have gotten 50% of the vote, meaning that there will be a runoff. Meanwhile the AP is quoting a spokesman for Tsvangirai's party as saying they have won a (bare) majority of 50.3%. These numbers are a far cry from what the opposition M.D.C. party was touting immediately after the election, i.e. that they had won a landslide with around 60% of the vote.

From my perspective, its very hard to imaging how in a country with 80% unemployment and virulent hyperinflation, the incumbent president could get anywhere close to 48-49% of the vote, but the opposition is not claiming any vote rigging in their claim of getting 50.3%.

The main theories behind the delays are (1) Mugabe is buying time to steal the vote. This theory now seems out of favor. Apparently the simple tactic of posting the results quickly at each polling station has made changing the results too costly. (2) Mugabe is buying time to negotiate a golden parachute. This seems plausible. (3) Mugabe considers having to endure a runoff "humiliating" and beneath him, but his advisers are pushing him to suck it up and accept the runoff. That sounds like something a crazy person would think, so I guess it is a plausible theory here too.

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