It is difficult to make sense of the current ominous political drama surrounding the result of the presidential elections in Zimbabwe.
Let me set the context of the elections, which were held March 29, 2008. These elections were unique in that there were four different elections taking place simultaneously. Each voter had to complete four different voting forms for presidential, senate, parliament, and local government nominations. There were about 9,000 voting stations around the country. According to a new election law, results of the votes had to be posted on the door of each voting station. This was done on March 30 by almost all the voting stations around the country. Opposition parties and civil societies were then able to collate the results. Local communities were also able to see the results.
It became apparent from the results that the opposition party Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) had won in all four categories. The MDC called a press conference and announced their victory based on the results from the voting stations across the country.
The government did not expect that they would lose. Prior to the elections, they used state resources to launch their campaign and were so confident of winning that Robert Mugabe went on TV stating that all parties should respect the outcome of the people as this was the expressed wish of the nation. He even went as far as saying that if he lost he would step down. He never imagined that he would lose to the opposition.
So the government withheld the results and slowly released the results of the parliamentary, senate, and local government elections. They lost in both parliamentary and local government and tied in the senate. There was no word on the presidential elections -- only an ominous silence and then demands for a recount. What is amazing in the delays and demands by the government is that the results have not been released, so how can there be talk of a recount and why should there be a recount!
Clearly the government knows it has been defeated
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