Zimbabwe election: Mugabe wins parliamentary majority

[webfact]

Zimbabwe election: Mugabe's Zanu-PF 'wins majority'

HARARE: -- Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's party has won a huge majority in parliament in this week's elections, officials say.

With most seats declared, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission said Zanu-PF had won 137 seats in the 210-seat chamber, just short of two-thirds.

Results in the presidential race have yet to be announced.

Mr Mugabe's main rival, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, has already dismissed the election as "a sham".

Mr Tsvangirai, 61, who heads the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and is running for president against Mr Mugabe, said the vote was "null and void".

Full story: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-23554443


-- BBC 2013-08-03

[theblether]

What's the odds the vote has split along tribal grounds again?

This is a gap in democracy, African style.

[george]

Warm congratulations!

[Suradit69]

"Results in the presidential race have yet to be announced."

This remains a real cliff hanger. I'm surprised Karl Rove hasn't appeared on Fox to predict the outcome.

"What's the odds the vote has split along tribal grounds again?"

The prediction was that tribal voting would split the opposition at a cost to Tsvangirai because the Ndebele would be inclined to vote for the MDC-N lead by Welshman Ncube, an ethnic Ndebele. Of course the reported results will probably have as much to do with reality as the final vote calculations in Florida.

In that regard Zimbabwe elections are quite like the Thai bashing rants on many of the threads on Thai Visa: highly predictable and bearing no connection to reality.

[Pikeybkk]

total sham.....

[Sydebolle]

Well, what do we know?

Democracy in Zimbabwe might be worse though than living in colonial Rhodesia and life in Harare is harsher than in old Salisbury for all I know :-(

Is Morgan Tsvangirai the solution to the problem or part of it? Started up as rival opposition, joined Mugabe in his hoaxy government as PM and lost the election again against Don Robert. Tsvangirai's moment might (MIGHT) come once the old fart Mugabe is buried and latter seems to just not happen anytime soon!

Meanwhile another African state dies a slow "democratic" death to the utter hardship of the uneducated locals .....

[chooka]

No surprise Does a dictatorship ever loose an election?

[lungmi]

Our PM visited Mugabe on her Africa tour? Where she went? I missed the information.

Countries where Mr. T. has investments in bloody gold and diamonds?

[CIHUAHUA]

Mr Mugabe only needs one vote, his own.

[Frank James]

Somewhere, Cecil Rhodes is laughing.

[Mudcrab]

Warm congratulations!

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[Mudcrab]

Warm congratulations!

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Once the food bowl of Africa to a basket case.

[Mosha]

It's not who votes that counts, but who counts the vote, and how,

[geriatrickid]

Our PM visited Mugabe on her Africa tour? Where she went? I missed the information.

Countries where Mr. T. has investments in bloody gold and diamonds?

If you intent was to sling mud, you have failed miserably. In less time than it took you to post your attempt at incitement you could have effected a quick search.

About 48,600,000 results (0.50 seconds)

Here's an example;

The Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Thailand who is also the Minister of Defense Yingluck Shinawatra arrives in Uganda today, for an official state visit at the invitation of President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni. Yingluck Shinawatra whose African tour will see her visit Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda to strengthen economic ties between African countries ...................

Mr. Mugabe is 89. He will be dead within a year or two. The election results are meaningless.

[geriatrickid]

It is amusing to read the white Europeans pronouncements on the election results. Apparently, these people do not believe that the Africans themselves are capable of making the assessment. All hail the superior European people.

The African Union (AU) observer mission which was led by former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, was the first to offer its assessment.

“The voting was carried out in an atmosphere devoid of violence, harassment and disturbances,” the AU said in a statement read by the Observer Mission’s Deputy Chief Dr Aisha Abdullahi, who is also the Commissioner for Political Affairs at the AU Commission in Addis Abba.

“The Mission observes generally, that from a historical perspective and in comparison to the 2008 elections, Zimbabwe has made an important transition in the conduct of its elections.”

The AU deployed a 60-member Observation Mission to the 31 July 2013 harmonised elections in Zimbabwe in accordance with the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance and the OAU/AU Declaration on the Principles Governing Democratic Elections in Africa. The mission observed the pre- election, election and post-election phases.

[JemJem]

Sad !

Sad times again for democracy and human rights in Zimbabwe.

Do you think that in the near future, there will be mass anti-government protests in Zimbabwe, like the ones in North African countries and Turkey ?! I certainly hope so !

[geriatrickid]

Sad !

Sad times again for democracy and human rights in Zimbabwe.

Do you think that in the near future, there will be mass anti-government protests in Zimbabwe, like the ones in North African countries and Turkey ?! I certainly hope so !

I hope not. People tend to be killed during such protests.

Mugabe would kill thousands before anything happened.

Better to run the clock. The man is close to meeting his end. tick tock, tick tock and all that.

[lungmi]

Our PM visited Mugabe on her Africa tour? Where she went? I missed the information.

Countries where Mr. T. has investments in bloody gold and diamonds?

If you intent was to sling mud, you have failed miserably. In less time than it took you to post your attempt at incitement you could have effected a quick search.

About 48,600,000 results (0.50 seconds)

Here's an example;

The Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Thailand who is also the Minister of Defense Yingluck Shinawatra arrives in Uganda today, for an official state visit at the invitation of President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni. Yingluck Shinawatra whose African tour will see her visit Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda to strengthen economic ties between African countries ...................

Mr. Mugabe is 89. He will be dead within a year or two. The election results are meaningless.

O.k. You are right 66 %.

But Uganda is different. A good technician ( devoted redshirt) of my rural area is now in Uganda. Goldmines business. O.k. no bloody diamonds, but bloody gold.

The breakdown of the gold price is one part oft he bloody gold busiyness.

My information source is "the Guardian",Le Monde, Washinton post, Huffington post, Süeddeutsche Zeitung.

You as a very good hack lawyer you use the information in a different way.

[jackr]

Mr. Mugabe is 89. He will be dead within a year or two.

I've been saying the same thing to myself for at least the last decade.

[jackr]

It is amusing to read the white Europeans pronouncements on the election results. Apparently, these people do not believe that the Africans themselves are capable of making the assessment. All hail the superior European people.

Tongue in cheek, for sure... the kind of tripe one expects to read from a certain racist demographic on UTube .

Doesn't take a white European to realise that something is amiss when up to a million were omitted from the voters' roll, numerous dead people on voters' roll and 300,000 voters turned away.

I will have a quiet party for Zimbabweans when he is in the ground.

[boomerangutang]

Zimbabwe: The hub of rigged elections. .....and that's a tough list to head, as there are rigged elections in probably half the world's countries. Thailand probably rates up there in the top 20, if you count payments for individual votes - which is rampant.

[copa8]

why is zimbabwe even relevant? if it disappears overnight, no one would care. compare to say, singapore, it's over 500x larger and has almost 3x the population, yet has just 1/40th the gdp.

[Credo]

It's important because people live there and the election affects their lives.

[JemJem]

Well said, Credo. That was very heartless of you, Copa8.

There are sadly many political figures who have been democratically elected but then have been ruling with little regard for democratic principles and human rights. Mugabe, Putin and Erdogan come to mind; and there are many others, mainly in Asia and Africa.