Thursday, May 29, 2008

Zimbabwe disaster rolls on

Zimbabwe's election campaign resumed on May 25th in advance of the poll on June 27th that will finally decide who will be the President of Zimbabwe: 84 year old incumbent Robert Mugabe, leader of ZANU-PF or Morgan Tzvangirai, leader of the opposition MDC.

Tzvangirai had been out of the country for several weeks in the lead-up to the campaign. Upon his return, Tzvangirai claimed 50 people have been killed in election-related violence and 25,000 made refugees since March 29th.

President Mugabe has called U. S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs ,Jendayi Frazer, a prostitute and threatened to kick the US Amassador, James McGee, out of the country. Mugabe accuses the United States of meddling in local politics.

ZANU-PF, Mugabe's party, says he will accept accept the outcome in the final election should it come to that. They say they expect to win.

If all this wasn't bad enough, apparently President Mugabe may have cancer and flew to Singapore last week for tests.

The most recent development saw a newly elected MP arrested for allegedly having approached the military on March 31st hoping to win support in the wake of what they believed at the time was an election victory for Morgan Tzvangirai.

Meanwhile, ordinary Zimbabweans speak their mind via BBC News' interactive web coverage of the coming election.

Fingers crossed for a genuine election and an outcome with integrity on the 27th of June. Hopefully air traffic control in Harare will be able to pick up flying pigs on radar.

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