Failure of democracy in Zimbabwe
June 22, 2008 · By Charles Anthony
I think Mr. Tsvangirai is making the right decision.
At a news conference, Mr. Tsvangirai, who leads the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, or M.D.C., said he was unwilling to ask the party’s supporters to go to the polls on Friday “when that vote will cost them their lives.â€
Giving up their lives just to go through the motions of an election would be a foolish sacrifice. No matter what the result of the election, a peaceful transfer of power would never take place.
Also, Mugabe could point to this fraud of an election as some kind of democratic validation of his leadership. Now that he has succeeded in intimidating his opponents from running, the rest of the world needs to get involved.