Africa Finally Wakes Up To Mugabe

It's taken a while but finally fellow African nations have added their authoritative voices to those international observers about the lack of freedom and democracy in Zimbabwe's elections.

Having been intimidated, arrested, beaten, charged with treason, banned from advertising, starved and even killed or having close family members killed the supporters and leaders of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change have gained some support from their own Continent. Tanzanian Foreign Minister Bernard Membe who is part of the monitoring Troika said:

"The first impression we have is that if the elections were to take place today, these elections would never be free and fair... because... the report we received still indicates that violence is escalating throughout Zimbabwe."

With the re-run presidential elections only 7 days away on 27 June that does not bode well that the will of the people from the 29 March election will be strong enough to overcome the will of Robert Mugabe 3 months later. But with the leaders of South Africa, Kenya and Senegal all now expressing concerns about the fairness of next weeks poll is it too little too late.

It may not be too late as the people may still find a way to have their voice heard through the ballot box, and seeing the level of intimidation, starvation and deprivation he is willing to inflict on his own people they may see change through the MDC as their best hope for personal survival no matter what they risk by voting so on the day.

Drip, Drip, Drip From Zimbabwe

Okay the long drip, drip, drip of results from Zimbabwe's elections is indicating a different result than expected following the intial postings of results outside counting stations at the weekend. This is looking like some sort of Zanu PF attempt at manipulating as close to a statistical tie as they can manage.

Now after Movement for Democratic Change claims that Morgan Tsvangirai had run 60% of the Presidential vote, but that we sould expect a result saying Robert Mugabe would have 52% just eenough to avoid a run off, it appears that the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission on on the verge of calling a run-off.

So obviously there weren't enough votes stolen or otherwise to even get to the magic figure of 52%. The eyes of the world are still on this and the BBC presence inside Zimbabwe seems to be increasing on a daily basis at the moment.