Zimbabwe: The Election is on.

Fire of Liberty

As you are aware, tomorrow is Zimbabwe's parliamentary elections and will determine if Robert Mugabe stays or is put to pasture. From what I've seen so far, Mugabe is fightin' like hell to ensure that the opposition MDC party never takes over. As with most tyrants, "Uncle Bob" is one who will pull out all his chits and push all his buttons to embarrass and diminish the resolve of his opponent in order to continue his 25 year reign. Just look at what an article in The Times has on the octogenarian president's rallies:

At his final campaign rally in Harare today, attended by some 3,000 supporters, Mr Mugabe condemned black people who vote for the resurgent opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), as "traitors".

In comments which have added to concern as tensions rise in the run-up to the election, he described Morgan Tsvangiri, its leader, as a "big-headed man with no brain".

A coalition of human rights groups has warned that despite the unprecedented peace of the campaign, which marks a major shift from the elections five and three years ago when scores were killed and beaten in political violence, vote-rigging and intimidation were still likely to skew the result which is already heavily weighted in Zanu-PF's favour.

Ole Bob Mugabe seems to think this "campaign event" will stave off a deluge of votes to his MDC opponent Morgan Tsvangiri who is on a surging wave of support amongst the people in parts of Zimbabwe. Though the odds are in Mugabe's favor, what, with Zanu PF owning the newspaper, TV and radio as well as a great political machine that loves to use coercion to get the votes, the people of this African nation could give Mugabe a what for. We'll see how everything turns out tomorrow. I'd make a non-monetary wager on MDC winning, just wait and see.

Along with the above article from The Times, Roger Bate has an article over @ Tech Central Station about the sky-rocketing AIDS epidemic that is not just wreaking havoc on Zimbabwe. Though AIDS is an African problem, it seems to be a disaster in epic proportions in Mugabe's tyranny. Just see how bad Zimbabwe has become:

Everything is falling to pieces in Bulawayo and especially the health care system. But while the regional African Presidents see refugees pushing up their burden of malaria and HIV, they shy from breaking ranks with a fellow African leader and refuse to condemn Zimbabwe's patent contempt for democracy. It's time to ask whether aid to the region should be stopped until these spineless leaders decide to act on the only leader Zimbabwe has ever known -- his excellency, comrade President Robert Mugabe.

Zimbabwe's rapidly escalating and politically-induced humanitarian disaster, which has manifested itself in chronic shortages of food, medicine, fuel, electricity and hard cash, has driven over three million Zimbabweans into South Africa, Botswana and other neighboring states. In a chilling echo of what the Khmer Rouge did in Cambodia in the 1970s, Didymus Mutasa, Secretary of President Mugabe's Zanu-PF government, said: "We would be better off with only six million people". Prior to the crisis, Zimbabwe's population estimate was 12 million; today 60 to 70 percent of the country's productive population is now living elsewhere. Since the World Food Programme (WFP) was thrown out of the country in December, what food remains is allocated along political lines, leaving over 5 million malnourished: Secretary Mutasa may get his wish.

When a nation starts losing this many people due to the virtual collapse of the Zimbabwean economy and health care system, you generally have a problem with the leadership. I guess when you take all the farms and industry from the original owners and give it to your friends and family who let the fields go fallow and allow machinery to rust up this is what happens. I just feel for the people of Zimbabwe who are dying due to Mugabe's inadequacies.

Also, check out more on Zimbabwe's election here and here.