Marwick Khumalo, head of the Pan-African parliamentary observer mission, told journalists the turnout was very low and that the mood was somber. "We saw one long queue, which we mistook for a polling station, only to find the people were queuing for bread," he said, adding that the ingredients for a free and fair election were missing.
QUEUING TO BUY BREAD TOO BAD A COUNTRY.
WORST THAN NIGERIA OR WHAT DO YOU THINK NAIJA FOLKS IN THE HOUSE??

obviously, nigeria cld be better but I gs we cant complain knowing what we know about zimbabwe and loads of other third war countries

@ Eclairs

zimbabwe started like this too. If we dont do sometin now, we can also breed a mugabe.

there was nothing fair about the elections in Zim. Morgan Tsvangirai (the Pres. candidate for the MDC) had won the elections earlier in March/April. Mugabe refused to accept his loss and using the power of incumbency, asked for a run-off. now before the run-off elections, he used his thugs in instilling fear into the hearts and minds of Zimbabweans whom he thought had voted against him. there was mass beatings going on in the rural areas of Zim that people (especially Africans) are not aware (but can be search for on the internet e.g youtube). A lot of people were displaced from their homes. Inflation in Zim is the world's highest. It sky-rocketed from about 300% last year Aug to what i believe is 300,000% now. It takes billions of Zim dollars to buy a loaf of bread, A LOAF OF BREAD.  Imagine "hard labour" costing billions of Naira. So some people decided to run away to foreign countries. Some emigrated to SOuth Africa, Malawi, Bostwana, etc illegally. Some Zimbabweans died in the process of running to South Africa via the Serengeti which is the well-known tourist game-reserve in south africa that contains wild lions. these guys were eaten by the lions. but it didn't stop subsequent zimbabweans from coming to south africa, because anything was better than remaining in zimbabwe.
let our prayers go out to this country and her people. may we ask for her safety and the safety of her children. and may our govt. come to a resolute decision and take a stand to act against this non-sense because keeping quiet is as good as condoning this SIN. unfortunately many Nigerians are not aware of the on-going situation in Zim. spread the word. raise the discussion amoung your circles. No effort is too small towards achieving a brighter tomorrow. Mugabe must not remain in power, he must go. we cannot continue to overlook his indiscretions.

The West has provided all the tools needed for Mugabe to remain in power. They meddle in the country's internal affairs and they sponsor a presidential candidate, not a good way to seek for change.

Afam:

The West has provided all the tools needed for Mugabe to remain in power. They meddle in the country's internal affairs and they sponsor a presidential candidate, not a good way to seek for change.

Any proof that Tsvangirai was sponsored by the West?

You've spent a lot of effort railing against western countries for the use of force in Iraq. Now less lethal means of applying pressure are being used and you're still not happy.

Change in the Repulic of Mugabe cannot be achieved easily with the way the west is going about it.

Proof as in documents in my possession? No.

But I guess it is not a secret that he received money and support from foreign nations especially Australia and UK. Same way countries like the US and UK keep providing funds to opposition parties in some countries where they are not allowed to dictate their day to day activities.

@Afam,
i don't think the crux of the problem is so much about the West interfering. the crux of the problem is the 85% unemployment rate, the 4 million percent inflation currently, the deaths and continuous killings and beatings in the name of ZANU-PF nationalism, i mean you really cannot put a measure on the loss of life, Western influence or no western influence. Mugabe must be stopped, he must be removed from office by hook or crook for this mass injustice against his own people should not and cannot continue. If mugabe was truly a nationalist, he should know when to quit. he has served 5 terms in office. shouldn't he have trained someone responsible enough to take the reins of the country. is he the only one who is poised enough to rule in Zimababwe? we should learn to move past our sentiments against the west. do you think china is any better? and why must we always look elsewhere for help? why can't we look inwards for our solutions? you will find that african countries that do not brood on Anti-Western sentiments are the ones who experience Economic freedom--speaking of Botswana and Seychelles. so we really must begin to look past our Anti-colonial sentiments and face our problems with solutions. i don't believe anyone would see paying billions for a loaf bread as some sort of nationalistic pride.

Thanks for your post. The main issue here is - When and why did Zimbabwe become so bad? What happened?

Answers to these questions will help us understand what we are dealing with and more importantly to see how we can prevent such from happening in our own backyard.

I don't have a problem with the West but with the double standards and hypocrisy they shamelessly promote especially under Bush and Blair, no apologies for that.

Obaseki

You have said it all.

I don't even blame Mugabe too much because nobody likes to leave power. I blame the Military Brass in Zimbabwe who allow themselves to be collectively blind.

Are u kidding me, how does anybody rule a nation for 28years with 4million percent inflation, 85% unemployment and yet people buy his white supremacist propaganda.

Zimbabweans have a choice rise up and move on from their colonial past or clinge to it and remain in poverty

Being in power for 28 years is not the issue. Ghaddafi of Libya has been there since 1969 and Libya is not boiling.

Unfortunately, we tend to forget the root causes of the disagreements that turned Zimbabwe from a beautiful place to what it is today.

If the people of Zimbabwe want Mugabe out they will remove him but for now the meddling of the West in the countries internal affairs is enough reason for many Zimbabweans to believe Mugabe, whether they are right or not in believing him is yet another issue entirely.

texazzpete:

Any proof that Tsvangirai was sponsored by the West?

You've spent a lot of effort railing against western countries for the use of force in Iraq. Now less lethal means of applying pressure are being used and you're still not happy.

The 'cry baby' Tsvangirai ran to his sponsor WEST(holland embassy).

why cant he run to SA embassy?

A dog in danger will run to his masters!

And he must be a joker if he thinks Mugabe will handover to him. When ZANU people were all over the street, where were his people, if he truly has any.

Now compare that with Kibaki + Odinga in Kenya; it was fight to finish between two supporters.

Afam:


Unfortunately, we tend to forget the root causes of the disagreements that turned Zimbabwe from a beautiful place to what it is today.

We do not forget what happened. We know that Mugabe turned the foob basket of africa into a starvation zone. Not because he drove away the white farmers, but because he replaced them with incompetent war veterans who knew nothing about farming.

There is the Mlezu College Of Agriculture, Zimbabwe, or the Esigodini college of Agriculture, Esigodini Zimbabwe. These schools churn out thousands of agriculture graduates who are more suited for farm work. did Mugabe employ their services? No.

Instead all the despot has done is hand out arable land to people who have left them fallow, causing mass shortage of food. Simultaneously he has done his best to convince the world that the sanctions, which are actually targeted at top Zimbabwean politicians , are what is causing the soil not to produce. He has clearly succeeded with some nairalanders.

Afam:

If the people of Zimbabwe want Mugabe out they will remove him but for now the meddling of the West in the countries internal affairs is enough reason for many Zimbabweans to believe Mugabe,

They tried to remove him, remember? It's called elections, and Tsvangirai won the first round despite the oppression from Zanu PF agents.
That was until your man used thuggery to sweep the run-off in polls marked by voter apathy, fear and brutal repression of opposition.

landis:

When ZANU people were all over the street, where were his people, if he truly has any.

So what you advocate is thuggery, eh?
Some people are not power hungry enough to sacrifice the lives of their people. bringing out his supporters to confront a brutal regime would have led to deaths and destrtuction. Is that what you want?

landis:


Now compare that with Kibaki + Odinga in Kenya; it was fight to finish between two supporters.

Is that what you'd like before you respect Tsvangirai? Anarchy?

You've never cared what happens to the people of Zimbabwe. all you care about is more ammunition against the west. Millions may die and you will remain unfazed. That clearly defines you as a ghoul.

So what you advocate is thuggery, eh?
Some people are not power hungry enough to sacrifice the lives of their people. bringing out his supporters to confront a brutal regime would have led to deaths and destrtuction. Is that what you want?

very good.

So Cry Baby Tsavangari should go to UK or US and clean kitchen or sell newspaper on NY street.

Power is not for the weakling. This is more reason, the ZIM people should reject him further.

ZIM people should rally round Mugabe and encourage him to look for a courageous successor not that whimp.

landis:

very good.

So Cry Baby Tsavangari should go to UK or US and clean kitchen or sell newspaper on NY street.

Power is not for the weakling. This is more reason, the ZIM people should reject him further.

ZIM people should rally round Mugabe and encourage him to look for a courageous successor not that whimp.

And courage is killing and oppressing innocent civillians?
Do we need thuggery and violence to show courage?

true courage is having the guts to make the tough decisions to better your people. Mugabe had the chance to let people with strong Agric skills handle the farms.

Instead in a cowardly move to bolster support, he handed over his country's lifeline to clueless veterans. He has since been unable to slow down the slide to inflation, preferring instead to place theblame on the west.

That makes him a coward and a weakling. it is a reflection of your flawed morals and values that you see this as 'courage'.

In as much as I want zimbabweans to find or choose who will lead them, i am totally in support of Mugabe for the time being,this Divide and Rule Syndrome employed the the West to distabilise many countries so that the can come in must be condenmed. I think what Zimbabweans need now is economic stablity,let them go into massive agricultural programmes,produce what they can eat first, Lybia did it and it worked for them,just because they are arab country, we so much rely on the West that if the say we should perish today,all of us will, Nigeria should learn their lesson from this as well.
OPERATION FEED URSELF FIRST.and then to hell with the WEST.Thanks
CHIMDI

I am happy that many people are seeing beyond what the West and their supporters tell us. Run off elections are not new unless you don't want it to apply in Zimbabwe.

Let the people of Zimbabwe look inwards and go into aggressive farming, enough of the meddling of the Western nations in the internal affairs of African nations.

The opposition leader receives funding from the West and even in his own country he ran to a foreign embassy and yet he wants to become president of Zimbabwe like the guys the US installed in Iraq and Afghanistan, never.

That makes him a coward and a weakling.

Cry Baby Tvsangaria is flip-flop.  He is not ready to lead Zim.

Ian Smith did not handed power to Mugabe on platter of GOLD

That said, the people runing around for ZANU are ordinary ZIM, which means they still support him since he has no money to give them like 'abacha 1million march'

Let the people of Zimbabwe look inwards and go into aggressive farming,

exactly, what I expected from African countries is to support ZIM people in farming. At this age, we still allow divide and rule to work on us.

Imagine G8 inviting some african leaders to their lame meetings and yet they attend such rubbish.

You know i really wouldn't be surprised to find that "landis" is a staunch member of ZANU-PF. See that's the problem with anonymity on the internet. Well the fingerprints you have left behind indicate the patterns and whorls of ZANU-PF. I mean look at what "landis" wrote earlier:
The 'cry baby' Tsvangirai ran to his sponsor WEST(holland embassy).

why can't he run to SA embassy?

A dog in danger will run to his masters!

And he must be a joker if he thinks Mugabe will handover to him.  When ZANU people were all over the street, where were his people, if he truly has any.

Now compare that with Kibaki + Odinga in Kenya; it was fight to finish between two supporters.


First off, i don't think Tsvangirai should be characterized as a cry baby, please don't form unnecessary perceptions here.
Secondly you ask why didn't he run to SA? Oh so that he would be handed over to Mugabe and his cronies, so that they can do to him worse than what they meted out to him last year? Ah i see why you wanted him to go to the SA embassy. Is it not obvious that the President of SA is NOT a mediator in the political crisis in Zim, but a crony to Mugabe? Thabo Mbeki is a staunch ally to Mugabe. Zim is a land-locked country that is dependent on SA's (South Africa's) ports.  Earlier this year, the proliteriat at the ports in SA refused accepting live ammunition and artillery from China which was headed to Zim. You as well as anyone can guess what the incumbent in Zim was going to use the weapons for. Mbeki wanted the weapons accepted and transported to Zim but the workers at the port refused it, and i belief the weapons were turned back to China . If anyone has so much say in putting this madness to an end, it is Thabo Mbeki.
Thirdly, how can you expect to find a large following of Tsvangirai in the June 27 election when your friends in ZANU-PF successfully intimidated non-Mugabe supporters into voting for Mugabe, or at least succeeded in driving pro-Morgan voters out of Zim.  take a listen at these videos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UrpciPVOdk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_41ktGyuob8&feature=user
There are so many other videos on the internet at your disposal if you look for them. maybe you would have a change of heart because i don't think you know the magnitude of the things you are saying. Or who knows maybe you do?

In my opinion, the west has tried to stay out of Zim's biz in these elections, at least they don't seem to have meddled as much as they ordinarily would have, maybe because they do not want to be associated with their ancestral history of colonialism by meddling in a soverign nation's biz. So in that light you would expect that Africa should come together to solve its own problems the way the middle-east came together to broker peace in war torn lebanon. But oh no, in the AU summit, our leaders were very timid about the topic, you would think the crisis was non-existent. Maybe our leaders were quiet because a lot of them came into power via illegit elections, and so didn't want to point their dirty accusational fingers. But we know that Mandela spoke against Mugabe's actions. we know Bishop Desmond Tutu has spoken against them as well. In fact Tutu was noted to have recommended mugabe's removal by force. now are you going to tell me that these two pan-africanists i just mentioned have also been bought by the West? I would like to watch you convince me.
I don't think it is right to call Tsvangirai a flip-flop. He is probably the most diplomatic and politically astute southern african since the era of Biko, Mandela and Walter Sisulu. He has played Mugabe like a chess game even though he (Morgan) lacks the military might and advantage of incumbency Mugabe possesses. It was obvious Morgan won the march elections. Morgan knew that if Mugabe asked for a run-off, he would use violence to ensure that he (Mugabe) won the elections. So a few days before the June 27 elections, under the scrutiny of the multilateral, Morgan pulled out of the elections owing to the high death toll of his supporters (something that Kibaki and/or Raila failed to do, which tells me they do not put the people first. In other words we may be witnessing a hypocrisy not a democracy in present day Kenya). And with him left every ounce of credibility in the June27 elections. That was a classic "check" move. At first, staunch Morgan followers showed aversion to his decision, but then it became apparent that he had cornered the 85year-old on the political board. So you see landis, Morgan Tsvangirai isn't earning his credibility in the international scene on a platter of GOLD either, where Mugabe chooses to use brawn, Tsvangirai has been shown to use brains. And furthermore, it is not brawn that will rescue Zim from the 4million % inflation rate, but brains. You ask that Mugabe train a successor, i say he has done so indirectly, in the person of Morgan Tsvangirai.

oh i forgot to add that part of the reason why Mugabe is holding on dearly to power is becos he knows that if he leaves, he would be brought to book on all the atrocities he committed while in office, i mean this man was involved in some sort of genocide against the dhiwilis (pardon my spelling if its incorrect) during an earlier election when he ran against Joseph Nkomo. and his loyalists now are some of the people who helped him commit those atrocities against the dhiwilis, and they too are afraid that if mugabe is not in power, their safety and indeed lives would be in jeopardy. the other cronies mugabe has are those whom he is able to provide a semi-comfortable life for in an economy with sky-high inflation rates. so you see Mugabe may not be so far different from former president abacha.

even though i have always been against europe,britain and america meddling,im saying this with a totally unbiased mind, i dont really see why tsvangirai will not dialogue and go for a power sharing arrangement to ease the sufferings and the crisis the zimbabweans are going through.to me irrespective of wether he won or not, the plights of his supporters and the general zimbabweans should be paramount and rebuilding the battered economy.one thing is that with the publicity and interests zimbabwe has generated the last couple of months i think mugabe has no choise but to listen to opposition in government if they both agree,in kenya even though the opposition won he still agreed to power sharing because of what his country was going through,
when two elephants fight,the grass suffers mugabe is immune to to the battered economie's effects and tsvangirai too is immune to the sufferings of his supporters and general zimbabweans with the pounds rolling in from britain to fund him

I am going to guess a lot of people in here did not even read or see Tsanvgiri give his reason for wanting to drop out. Cause knowing what I know of the case, I find it hard to believe that anyone who has access to that information could come to conclusion that many have in here, on the issue of his dropping out.

irrespective of the reasons for opting out,his supporters should come first, if someone had his wife and kids at gunpoint and asked him to choose between executing them or making them suffer any harm and dialogue,im sure he wont wait for instructions from elder bros brown,same thing goes for mugabe as well but more tsvangirai because he s the one refusing the option of dialogue just because he believes come what may its either being the president or nothing,if abiola had the same mind frame and hid under the apron of britain and america im sure nigeria wouldnt have recovered by now.

How do you know or conclude that he did not do all that before deciding it best for him to walk away in this case?? His supporters were around him when he made the announcement. What makes you think He did not consult them and they all conclude this would be best way for them, for now?? Don't you see that his "supporters" are not or have not been fighting back

there are totally diffrent meanings to "supporters" and his "inner circle supporters",im sure he would discussed the real reasons with his inner caucus but ordinary supporters will be fed the usual dictatorship and democracy speech,from what we have all seen of the dead and wounded however and the stability of the country,i think dialogue is the best way to go, even if sadam hussein had not being deposed and he was still alive and free and ruling iraq,im sure he will have regreted not going for the dialogue option to prevent the state of his country, if theres no zimbabwe or it turns into another sierra leone or rwanda then even tsvangirai will flee and take refuge in an assylum shelter in central london in luxury like past assylum seekers of his level

lucabrasi:

there are totally diffrent meanings to "supporters" and his "inner circle supporters",im sure he would discussed the real reasons with his inner caucus but ordinary supporters will be fed the usual dictatorship and democracy speech,from what we have all seen of the dead and wounded however and the stability of the country,i think dialogue is the best way to go, even if sadam hussein had not being deposed and he was still alive and free and ruling iraq,im sure he will have regreted not going for the dialogue option to prevent the state of his country, if theres no zimbabwe or it turns into another sierra leone or rwanda then even tsvangirai will flee and take refuge in an assylum shelter in central london in luxury like past assylum seekers of his level

RUBBISH!!!

Kobojunkie:

RUBBISH!!!

should i be suprised, naw,typical

lucabrasi:

should i be suprised, naw,typical

I was hoping you could step away from your delusions to rethink the situation but I am not surprised you came back with the same old ramblings for answer to straight forward questions. So yea, you are right. Typical that you almost always seem to come up with an imagined connection between A and Z for answer to a question on M?  That is just you.

Kobojunkie:

I was hoping you could step away from your delusions to rethink the situation but I am not surprised you came back with the same old ramblings for answer to straight forward questions. So yea, you are right. Typical that you almost always seem to come up with an imagined connection between A and Z for answer to a question on M? That is just you.

hmmmn, delusions,
tsvangirai a british/american candidate
tsvangirai,rejecting any dialogue or any form of talks with mugabe unless he is sworn in as the president irrespective of what the country is going through,and will go through,
tsvangirai running to, wait for it, dutch embassy hmmn wonder if britain will have a cushty assylum pad in central london for him like the various russian oligarchs

hmm,if yes to all of the above then im not delusional,seems you just love using the word "delusion/delusional,and ramblings, well if you took time to read the first two lines,you ll have seen that its answered the s"straight foward question"
the connection between a and z with m inbetween is that they are all letters of the alphabet with m in between the two meaning they are all inter connected

@luca
What we have is Mugabe insisting that Morgan concede he won the last election fair and square before any dialogue.

In short, what he's asking is that the main oposition legitimize his regime and rule for the next 4 years, thereby ending any opposition once and for all in zimbabwe. He himself is under no compulsion to concede anything to Tsvangirai. So it could be a very terrible mistake to go down this route.

the run off polls was just a total charade, Zimbabwe has no regards for anything and it is just on its own


thanks to the stupid, stubborn and bullish tyrant called Mugabe!!!