Results are being announced province by province
Election results are being announced province by province – no constituency level detail – obviously to hide the humiliating detail and prevent analysis. 8 provinces in so far and I can tell you right now that the results are a complete and utter joke. Staggeringly farcical. We’ll bring them to you as soon as we have them all, and send out on Twitter as well.
June 29th, 2008 16:42
Have you read the reports of Third Force operatives, trained by the old Selous Scouts, who make terrorism in Zimbabwe, and then blame it on the government? Why don’t you tell the truth, that Mugabe was busted for confiscating the white farmers estate lands? Zimbabwe has been boycotted from all loans, that is why the economy is in shambles and the currency has hyperinflated. It’s a British Empire operation, thank the government of Elizabeth II of the UK, aka Elizabeth Guelph.
June 29th, 2008 17:07
Official results from BBC:
Robert Mugabe: 2,150,269
Morgan Tsvangirai: 233,000
Spoiled ballots: 131,481
Voter turnout: 42.37%
see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7479853.stm
June 29th, 2008 17:16
We have made a link to your excellent blogsite on our own – in our role of Zimbabwean blogs.
I wonder if you could please let us know whether their are any news stories – on blogs or otherwise regarding the safety of critical bloggers in Zimbabwe. I do apologise for this being a rather naive question – but is it safe to be a critical blogger in your country today?
We have a post on the Zimbabwean issue here:
http://bentsocietyblog.blogspot.com/2008/06/queen-takes-mugabes-knighthood-how-safe.html
We would very much like to learn more about Zimbawean bloggers and the work they do.
Kind Regards
Robin
June 29th, 2008 17:30
He’s just been sworn in – coverage was on Al Jazeera (who also have an Internet feed).
June 29th, 2008 17:53
More proof, if needed, the figures were ‘not adding up’:
at 4.30pm UK time zim metro had partial figures:
Presidential Run-Off Poll Results
Morgan Tsvangirai Robert Mugabe Spoilt Ballots
Bulawayo 13,291 21 127 9166
Harare 48 307 153 408 36046
Manicaland 29 561 123 284
Mashonaland Central
Mashonaland East
Mashonaland West 18 459 156 699 10 821
Masvingo 12 804 125 404 9740
Matebeleland North 40 079 84 185 9907
Matebeleland South 21 687 82 654 7 353
Midlands 33 555 204 407 19 438
TOTAL 233,000 2548906 131,000
Percentage total
Note: Total under Mugabe is not the sum of the figures!
pdf download from swradioafrica just now gives more or less the same for Morgan and spoilt ballots but some much bigger figures for guess who!!!
Byo 21,127
Hre 156,478
Manicaland 323,284
Mash west 256,699
Masvingo 321,404
Mat north 84,185
Mat South 92,654
Midlands 302,407
This total is still not the one above: this total around 1,557,000
Note Manicaland conveniently 200,000 votes added… exactly… maybe just a mistake in the first? but then Midlands basically 100,000 added? and Mash west, 100,000 exactly added? Oddly similar mistakes?
How absurd can the ‘final’ figures be?
June 29th, 2008 18:01
Response to “Secretary Bird”
You are a fine example of representing the “oppressed” now acting as the oppressor,” as is Robert Mugabe. The past is in the past, and concentrating on blame of prior generations occurances, as opposed too looking at the honest reality of Zimbabwe today, is the kind of time-wasting rational that prevents repair and progressive forward movement. You and your cohorts are selfish individuals who care for the populace of Zimbabwe in words only. If you don’t know the truth, please stop demonstrating your ignorance.
June 29th, 2008 18:27
Whitman,
Excuse me, but I was simply reporting the results as broadcast on BBC news today, for the information of people reading this blog. I neither stated an opinion, nor offered any discussion of the election, so I am utterly confused by your post regarding my “time-wasting rationale”.
I am also a Zimbabwean citizen, who knows first-hand the suffering of the Zimbabwean people and I care very deeply for my country and its people.
Before you start attacking people, perhaps you should get your facts straight.
June 29th, 2008 18:30
Whitman – and you are a complete moron. Re-read the comment Secretary Bird left.
June 29th, 2008 18:37
Could it be that Whitman Moore meant to say:
Response to Howard Gibson, instead of Response to Secretary Bird?
June 29th, 2008 18:40
I think you may be right True Grit; it certainly makes more sense read that way.
June 29th, 2008 19:43
I actually have a running stomach due to suppressed anger and frustration seeing the defiance, suffering and lack of respect of human life. i am not confident on the quality of the AU decision. we must continue with the people’s street actions wherever we are……yet another sad day for a great nation.
June 30th, 2008 00:39
Excuse me, but you know how much George Soros is paying to run the so-called opposition (now we now why Ian Smith endorsed the opposition), through his “Open Society” operation. That is not “the past.”
June 30th, 2008 11:59
Howard, how is this a bad thing?
From Wikipedia:
“The Open Society Institute (OSI), a private operating and grantmaking foundation, aims to shape public policy to promote democratic governance, human rights, and economic, legal, and social reform. On a local level, OSI implements a range of initiatives to support the rule of law, education, public health, and independent media. At the same time, OSI works to build alliances across borders and continents on issues such as combating corruption and rights abuses.”
If the MDC does indeed get funding from this institute, it seems to me to speak to their commitment to democracy and the protection of human rights. If you see this as a bad thing, then I hate to think what sort of government you’d like to live under..
June 30th, 2008 13:05
People, just go to SW Radio Africa website and hear the Hot Seat Interview conducted by Violet with George Charamba. what you will hear is absolutely unbelievable. This is really madness.
June 30th, 2008 15:04
George Soros and his billionaire’s club fund Open Society for purposes of corruption. They promote free trade, foreign ownership in “the colonies”, human rights for drug mafias, anti-national development policies. It’s the British Empire, and the Chinese “Opium War” all over again. And they want to destroy Zimbabwe AND South Africa, for strategic reasons, as the most developed parts of Black Africa. Check out this PDF.
June 30th, 2008 18:02
A very interesting report, Howard. It prompted me to do a bit of research into the author of the report, Lyndon LaRouche.
I am a bit loathe to accept in their entirety the views of a person who has frequently been labelled as a conspiracy theorist, anti-semitic (even by a New York Supreme Court judge during a libel case he placed in the courts in 1978), and who has had ties in the past to the Pennsylvania Ku Klux Klan. He is incredibly right-wing, which is fine (everyone is entitled to their own political perspectives), but this makes his criticism of the liberal left unsurprising, and it makes me wonder whether he’s simply looking for ammunition against the liberals, thus interpreting all his findings in the most negative light possible. He was also convicted of fraud in the 80s, and spent several years in prison. Not exactly a model citizen; I would take his writings with a very large pinch of salt.
In any case, the MDC, however they are funded, are a far more loyal, respectful, uncorrupt and decent party than the current group of thugs who claim to be ruling Zimbabwe.
June 30th, 2008 19:29
The interview with George Charamba is a timely reminder that some people really do believe that anyone who lives and works in Britain is actually working for the British state (background: the reason SW Radio Africa works in Britain is because they were closed down in Zimbabwe by the authorities – this was what Violet was trying to get George to reply on).
Unfortunately these people have lived so long in a country where the State controls everything, that they seem to think that whatever someone in the UK does, (whether their name is Violet or Soros or an English name) is somehow directed by the British State. Even someone like Soros who nearly brought the Government down! Similarly they almost always react to BBC reports as though they are coming from a Government mouthpiece.
This is because in Zimbabwe the State really does control the media to that extent.
Someone should explain to them that in a truly independent country, people are able to think and act independently of the state. I think about 95% of people in Zimbabwe recognise that that is what independence means. For the other 5%, we should stop laughing at them for having such an incomprehensible world view, and take them more seriously. Hard though that might be.